Hugo Corbin – Room to Dream

We’ve already spoken highly of Hugo Corbin’s first album here, Inner Roads in 2018.

Today, the guitarist releases his new album Room To Dream, which continues his quest for an inner space that is both literary and cinematic.

For this, he has assembled a formidable team, at the forefront of which is Monika Kabasele, whose sincerity, apparent candor and authenticity are never more apparent than on stage, as we discovered at the presentation concert held at Sunside on May 20.

Room To Dream marks a stage, a spectacular progression in musical discourse at the service of an overall cohesion based on a community of values, a savoir-être.

Virginia Woolf’s Chambre A Soi and David Lynch’s cinematic universe serve as references for the recorded work.

Here, we find ourselves in a more polyphonic, more colourful universe, in an organized polyphony based on an economy of means synonymous with plenitude.

On the contrary, we are reminded of the “dream of dark and troubling things” with which the filmmaker defined his first major film, Eraserhead.

Overall, the image of the guitarist chortling on his “Solid Body” Telecaster is irresistibly reminiscent of figures such as Mike Stern and John Scofield, but also of Ted Greene and Danny Gatton.

So we’re in the land of jazz fusion tinged with world music, a feeling further reinforced by the encore of the concert True Love Waits, a striking composition by the band Radiohead.

But this is not the rough and rugged jazz fusion of the likes of Mahavishnu Orchestra, Steps ahead or Return To Forever.

The relative gentleness of the arrangements brings the band’s approach closer to the territories explored by Uzeb or Sixun.

This is particularly evident on Kaili, Ilo-Ilo and Breathe.

The Gatewa, The Man In The Planet et And The Sun Rises embody a darker side of Hugo Corbin‘s universe, with a sonic pact that essentializes his bond with Yoann Loustalot, as well as his characteristic open-mindedness.

There’s a price to pay for going from darkness to light, from fear to serenity; this journey passes through convulsive zones of its own, and the process of metamorphosis is developed here in a very gradual way, sometimes recalling the music of Pink Floyd.

Notes detach, emancipate and erupt one by one, successive layers superimposed on the original canvas, falling like birds from the iridescent tree in the form of a sound wash drawn by the band.

The muffled timbre of the corked trumpet takes possession of your mind; Robby Marshall improvises long, finely articulated phrases on the inspired saxophone; Sandrine Marchetti‘s piano underpins the band’s work like a pointillist harmonic underpinning; Marc Buronfosse, as capable of syncopations on electric bass as of swinging rhythms on double bass, or memorable parts on Fender VI, and everywhere the telluric drums of Srdjan Ivanovic, played with mallets, brooms or sticks, which our rhythmicist handles with masterly hands, allowing Hugo Corbin‘s talent as a composer, unanimously praised by his musicians, to unfold fully.

And then there’s this masterpiece, La Route De Sampo, a title inspired by Sok-Yong Hwang’s collection of short stories, which the talents gathered on the Sunside stage have translated into grace-filled musical notes, lending the moment an almost miraculous poetic content. A superb album, masterfully performed in concert, full of finesse and sensitivity, devoid of artifice or overly embellishing and seductive impulses. It’s a real blessing in a world sorely lacking in coherence, but which art and culture still manage to save when they are so inspired.

Line Up:

Hugo Corbin – Guitar

Robby Marshall – Tenor Saxophone
Sandrine Marchetti – Piano

Monika Kabasele -Vocals
Yoann Loustalot – Trumpet, Flughorn

Marc Buronfosse – Bass, Double Basse, Fender VI
Srdjan Ivanovic – Drums

The release concert of this album was on May 20, 2025 at Sunside Paris

Translated with the help ofwww.DeepL.com/Translator