Bastien, Pierre
Sonic Folkways
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.