Yolk Records

Tip Trick is an atypical trio playing "chamber jazz" without stylistic boundaries.
By mixing the sounds of early jazz and contemporary music, this group founded by Santiago Quintans (guitar and composition) with Matthieu Donarier (Saxophone) and Jean-Louis Pommier (Trombone) explores the open, unlimited space between composition and improvisation.
Varied influences such as Jelly Roll Morton, Jimi Hendrix and György Ligeti are felt and treated with freedom by these musiciens who dig into sound always in search of moments of pure « joy » (kiss the Joy as it flies…)

For the release of "Kiss the Joy", the first opus of the trio on Yolk records, Santiago Quintans, describes in the liner notes the birth of the group and the music:

You have no idea what’s happened to what is no longer yours
Ted Hugues

I find this phrase on the score of "Cave Birds"; surrounded by corrections, scribbles and the like; Originally a sort of reminder, it looks like a premonition now. At the time, the daily ritual of writing taught me that the power of an idea caught on the fly, and lying awkwardly on paper vanishes quickly, only to leave us in a strange state of abandonment - what to do? Why « something » rather than « nothing »? Between profound emptiness and humble recognition of the evanescent character of all my intentions, this sentence reminded me that to « compose » means only « to observe » or « to accompany ».

Around 2012, I began to play regularly with Matthieu and Jean-Louis who focused their curious, benevolent and sometimes critical gaze on the "unidentified musical objects" that I was bringing to rehearsals, and which seemed to require a rather specific musical context to exist. Their way of bringing these ideas to life has been crucial in shaping the sound of this band; they invented a way of tuning and shaping timbre with the electric guitar that allowed me to imagine and offer them sonic canvases with complete freedom, despite the potential limitations of a trio without a rhythm section.

When we started to play and to improvise, these ideas became the playground in which we settled. "Kiss the Joy as it flies": having forgotten everything, we surrendered to the game and maybe, in doing so, touched on little moments of grace. I studied Jelly-Roll, dreamed of Stravinsky, and danced in Hendrix's shadow as Matt and Jelo told me their stories in the form of sonic counterpoint. TipTrick began to speak.

This disc sums up this adventure which lasts to this day, and which continues to evolve. Ten compositions playing the role of both structure and vanishing point: solid blocks with mobile interiors; anchoring pieces that serve as starting blocks to draw new images during the recording process. In the spur of a moment, sound and time take control.
This music no longer belongs to us: it left us when we closed the studio doors: this time, it is up to the listener, if he wants to play with us, to transform these paintings by listening actively to them. I hope that these tracks, even if far from being neutral, open enough horizons for a subjective ride. We have no idea what will happen ...