Loading ...I’ve heard of Mr. Bastien’s name on a multitude of mp3blogs, most notably on Radio Babylon. Although I’m not sure why I don’t remember that his main source of music was his handmade mechanical robot orchestra.
When I heard this track off his new album, I thought “hey another minimal electronica” record, although the sound wasn’t very similar and it didn’t feel like a Rephlex record. The feeling of the music was more similar to earlier minimalist artists like Glass or Reich and it sounded very futuristic, when the song faded into an eclectic Eastern brass solo after 4th minute, I decided to check out a bit on him.
The story came to an end when I checked Mr. Bastien’s site. He is a French multi instrumentalist composer, born in 1953, graduated from Sorbonne in 1977 and he has been making music, art and installations with his mechanical orchestra since then.. !
Aquarius records says “Why form a band, when you can construct robots and machines to play all the instruments? Why actually play the piano, or the guitar, or the drums, when you can construct an elaborate set of pulleys and levers and gears and axles that will play them for you?”
That’s the perfect explanation for Mr. Bastien. This is not electronic, this is indeed mechanical music and it’s minimal tone and subtle melodies are composed so well that you will be amazed to see how much most of the young electronica artists lack as opposed to this middle-aged master.
Then you think about how he has made those machines .. and the mind boggles..
First download Noon by Pierre Bastien. then head over here for an interview with this amazing personality, who is a wealth of knowledge and intellect.. and then finally go buy the album @ Boomkat
Alternatively you could head to his site and download more tracks by him; like Damn Mad and Avid Diva
PS: Discovered an old but essential blog post on the ever so deep WFMU blog, a post about mechanized music composers in which you could discover 10+ other mechanical musicians including Conlon Nancarrow (who really deserves a stand alone post one day) and Remko Scha, and also download one more track by Pierre Bastien.
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