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Feb 19, 2024 · Pierre Bastien. Recent Posts upcoming March 19, 2024 No Comments soon to be released. Read More » SOLO 2024 February 19, 2024 No Comments (extracts) Read More » ...
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Collaborating in the past with filmmaker Pierrick Sorin,...
- biography
Pierre Bastien (born 1953 in Paris) is a French musician, composer, and experimental musical instrument builder. Life and career. Bastien began building mechanical-based musical instruments at an early age, using items such as metronomes, cymbals, and pulleys.
Pierre Bastien, Blue As An Orange. French composer and multi-instrumentalist Pierre Bastien delivers the latest entry into Morphine’s increasingly diverse catalog. Active for over four decades, Bastien is best known for building automated orchestras, and his most recent LP, Machinations, was released on Aphex Twin’s Rephlex in 2012.
Collaborating in the past with filmmaker Pierrick Sorin, fashion designer Issey Miyake, singer and composer Robert Wyatt and Aphex Twin (who released three of his albums on his label Rephlex) to name a few, he is one of the most influential experimental musicians working in the field.
The French composer and multi-instrumentalist Pierre Bastien played first in some collective bands (Operation Rhino, Nu Creative Methods, Effectifs de Profil), and with the Dominique Bagouet Dance Company. Around 1986 he started participating in Pascal Comelade's Bel Canto Orquesta.
- Pierre Bastien Sonic Folkways
- Visions of Doing
- Mecanoid
- Impressions de Meccano
- Tomaga & Pierre Bastien Bandiera Di Carta
- Steve Argüelles, Pierre Bastien, Benoît Delbecq 4 Hands 1 Breath
Sonic Folkways represents the latest iteration of a style that Bastien describes as vacillating between melodic and rhythmic. For this album, rhythm was at the forefront of his mind. “I wanted to have groovy music from beginning to end. Right before recording, I was playing with a band called Tomaga, and I liked that very much, and I regret it has ...
Bastien always saw himself as operating on the borders of movements in both music and visual art, though the combination of these media in the sound art movement of the 1980s offered a community into which his project fit. “We were working in that direction of thinking that there are no borders between visual art and sound art. We were working in b...
Arguably, Bastien’s biggest break came in 2001 when Aphex Twin released his music on his Rephlexlabel. Still, Bastien felt as though he was yet again on the border of an artistic movement in sound. His mix of mechanical sound-machines and world instruments seems an odd match for the celebrated IDM label. “First of all, we must agree that I was on t...
Impressions de Meccano features the mecanium orchestra at its purest, as only mecanoid instruments play on it with no accompaniment by Bastien’s trumpet or any other collaborators. Koras, gongs, and even teapots are played by self-powered Meccano constructions. Bastien says that “In a certain way, I think it’s my best record,” though the limited la...
Until Tom Relleen’s untimely death in 2020, Bastien often collaborated with Tomaga, the duo of Relleen and percussionist Valentina Magaletti. Bastien’s mecanoids provide the foundation for Magaletti’s drumming and Relleen’s synths and organ, over which Bastien adds trumpet and horns. For the collaboration, Bastien began to design specific machines:...
Bastien does not rely solely on his mecanoids to collaborate, however. He also plays with free improv musicians, as in this recent album for trumpet and prepared piano. “Nowadays, the interesting musicians I meet are more into free improvisation,” he says. “For me, free improvisation was what we were doing in the ‘70s, but it seems that people who ...
- Matthew Blackwell
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Jan 16, 2024 · Pierre Bastien, l’homme qui fait jouer les machines. Il a collaboré avec des musiciens aussi différents que Robert Wyatt et Aphex Twin et même le créateur de mode, Issey Miyake. Depuis 1968, il joue avec un orchestre fabriqué de ses propres mains et décline des compositions de sons et d’images d’une poésie folle.
