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CREP 092LP
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By now counting more than four decades of constant activity, Pierre Bastien erected such a towering and influential body of work that any blurb attempt regarding his music could easily fall into redundancy. Not that his revolving soundworld, deeply personal and unique, has ever stalled into gimmick or self-mimicry, being Bastien the tireless explorer whose vision can never be complete, only continuously redefined in a process of discovery equally playful and challenging. So, completely in touch with Discrepant's ethos. Returning to the label after 2017 The Mecanocentric Worlds of Pierre Bastien, the French musician, composer, and instrument builder, brings an array of instruments from different cartographies and legacies with the appropriately titled Sonic Folkways. Resorting to different types of horns, prepared trumpet, an army of percussion, from gongs and tambourine to castanets and maracas, violin and too many others to mention here, Bastien weaves together a highly textured and hypnotic mosaic that projects an exotica beamed from scraps of the future. "Aha!" in the same interstellar wavelength as Sun Ra's cosmic tones, "Moor's Room" almost orchestral tapestry of small percussion and insects or the non-western strings and tunings salvaged from ancient alien ceremonies on "Pan's Nap". In an era where so much ink has been shed about world building in experimental music, Bastien can actually claim that to himself. The otherworld is right here, indeed. Artwork collage by Evan Crankshaw. Mastered by Anne Taegert at Dubplates & Mastering.
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MARIONETT 010LP
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"Pierre Bastien orchestrates his meccano marionettes on Tinkle Twang 'n Tootle to form the charming imaginative ensemble that he's been known for since the late '80s. Equal parts composer, inventor, mechanic, and performer -- Bastien translates his imagination into instruments and compositions that defy any musical categories. Whether it's preparing instruments like playing a trumpet underwater or through a kazoo, using belt-driven motors and mechanical components to perform cumbersome yet surprisingly musical operations on traditional instruments and household items, or using a fan to hit the strings of a kundi harp with flowing paper -- Bastien's love for tone, rhythm, noise and harmony is poetically reflected across his quite extensive oeuvre. Playful and melancholic, the sound sculptures that Bastien invents and plays with are partly inspired by the work of Raymond Roussel, a visionary French author who at the turn of the 20th century wrote a unique form of literature which inspired and guided artists from the surrealist and pataphysical movement and was declared by Michel Foucault as one of structuralism's founding fathers. On that note, the influence of literature and syntax on Bastien's work cuts all the way through to the palindromes he uses for his track titles - which, much like his machines, infinitely loop. True to its adorable title, Tinkle Twang 'n Tootle is a music box of unfolding whimsical structures, half broken rhythms, detuned harmonies, and fantastical sound collages that evoke a childlike sense of wonder and an urge to explore the spaces in between the sounds."
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DOSER 028LP
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French composer and multi-instrumentalist Pierre Bastien delivers another entry in Morphine's increasingly diverse catalog. Active since the mid-'70s, Bastien is best known for building automated orchestras. His previous album, Machinations, was released on Aphex Twin's Rephlex label in 2012 (REPH 215CD). For this work, Bastien recycled components of his Silent Motors live set and assembled mechanical organisms -- using amplified Meccano parts, motors, fans, rattles, paper, and nails -- to generate rhythmic scaffolding. Live instrumentals, created with prepared trumpets, African kundi harp, Javanese rabab, sanza, electric harpsichord, bass, drums, and gongs, were then superimposed on top. But for all their haptic mechanics, the assembled works on Blue As An Orange -- spanning jungled ambience to yellow jazz grooves -- are surprisingly delicate and nuanced, and generously laced with human warmth. As an installation artist, Bastien also captures shifting patterns of light and spatial texture in sound. This LP takes its name from Paul Éluard's poem "La terre est bleue," and offers a fresh symbiosis of speculative anthropology and old-world jazz. Produced by Rabih Beaini; mastered by Neel; designed by Tankboys; original cover art by Nathalie du Pasquier.
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