| Jazz |
Summary: Montreal composer Alexis Martin’s debut album blends cinematic storytelling and jazz-influenced textures into a deeply personal, atmospheric listening experience shaped by memory and motion.
Alexis Martin – Les Pôles – Volume 1
A Montreal composer translates two decades of film and television work into a debut album that moves like memory, shifting between stillness and quiet momentum.
A heavy warmth settles over Austin at 7 a.m. The sky is gray, the air still. Inside the office, a single object draws attention: an album with a restrained cover, resting beside the mixing console. The central figure suggests a man driven by something inward, a quiet but unmistakable force. The name reads Alexis Martin. Drummer. Percussionist. Composer. The title: Les pôles, Volume 1. I slide the CD into the player. The sound rises. Within seconds, it settles in, quietly, and stays.
I turn the sleeve over. Only track titles. No commentary. Inside, a booklet. One name stands out: Emie R. Roussel. Not a surprise, but a confirmation. Her presence signals a certain level of intent. From the opening track, “Entre le boom et l’écho,” the album reveals its depth. Listening feels akin to reading Marguerite Yourcenar, deliberate, introspective, shaped by a quiet sense of time. A piano phrase lingers over restrained percussion, giving the music a suspended quality. It becomes clear almost at once that, though Martin is a percussionist, he is working first and foremost as a composer, one who builds around themes rather than display.
That clarity extends beyond the first impression. It is difficult to believe this is a debut. Everything feels considered, even inevitable, down to the sequencing. Montreal-based composer and producer Alexis Martin steps forward here as a bandleader with a fully formed voice. Long recognized for his work in film and television, he brings that sensibility into these instrumental pieces. The result is a set of soundscapes that feel less constructed than observed, unfolding with a natural sense of pacing.
His compositions move like scenes, structured yet open-ended, guided less by genre than by narrative instinct. Les pôles, Volume 1 gathers pieces shaped by transition: the transformation of the world, the way certain places awaken memory, the wonder of childhood, the search for solace. The title reflects that motion. Like shifting magnetic poles, the music traces an emotional terrain where nothing remains fixed for long.
This approach is the product of time. Over two decades of collaboration across television projects and orchestral work, Martin has refined a language that now feels distinctly his own.
A native of Montreal, he draws from a wide range of artistic influences. At times, the music evokes the stillness of a museum gallery, each note carefully placed. Elsewhere, the interplay between instruments suggests theater, voices entering and receding in conversation. Movement is constant, not in tempo but in intention, as if the compositions themselves invite choreography.
I do not know every musician featured here, but after several listens, the cohesion is unmistakable. Each presence feels deliberate. A Canadian artist who titles a piece “Dune du Pilat” suggests a sensibility shaped by travel. That awareness carries through the album. It is there in the way the music observes rather than declares, in the sense that listening becomes a form of attention.
What ultimately emerges is the strength of Martin’s artistic identity. It holds the center. He shapes sound with a poet’s restraint. Jazz is not the dominant language here but a form of punctuation, a pause between phrases. It lingers like a late-summer wind along the shore, quietly assembling memory.
Thierry De Clemensat
Member at Jazz Journalists Association
USA correspondent for Paris-Move and ABS magazine
Editor in chief – Bayou Blue Radio, Bayou Blue News
PARIS-MOVE, May 6th, 2026
Follow PARIS-MOVE on X
::::::::::::::::::::::::
Musicians :
Alexis Martin: batterie, percussions, claviers, synthétiseurs Moog, programmation
Emie R. Roussel: piano, claviers, Fender Rhodes
Mathieu Désy: Contrebasse
Marie-Josée Frigon: saxophone ténor, saxophone baryton, clarinette basse
Jean-François « Fafoui » Gagnon: trompette, flugel horn, trombone à piston
André Leroux: saxophone ténor, saxophone soprano, flûte
Sheila Hannigan: violoncelle
Informations complémentaires:
Réalisation: Alexis Martin
Arrangements: Alexis Martin et Emie R.Roussel
Prise de son: Ghyslain-Luc Lavigne et Alexis Martin
Assistant à la prise de son: Mathieu Lavoie-Tarlo
Mixage: Ghyslain-Luc Lavigne
Matriçage: Marc Thériault, Le Lab Mastering
Orchestrations et copie: François Richard et Philippe Leclerc
Direction artistique visuelle: Yola Van Leeuwenkamp
Photographe: Justine Latour
Styliste: Mélanie Brisson
Graphisme: Michel Ouellette
Studios: Studio de la faculté de musique de l’Université de Sherbrooke, Studio Le Hublot, Studios Opus, The Treatment Room