I find Bastien a tireless explorer of musical instruments whose vision can never be complete, having recently seen him play live again with an overwhelming array of newly built contraptions, his is the work of a natural-born genius with sensors for revolutionary soundworlds.

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’s’ almost orchestral tapestry of small percussion and insects or the non-western strings and tunings salvaged from ancient alien ceremonies on ‘Pan’s Nap’.

LP from 2022. Artwork collage by Evan Crankshaw

Tracks:

1. Aha! 03:58
2. Moor’s Room 12:27
3. Rasta tsar 02:12
4. Pan’s Nap 12:18
5. Râ, Jaw ajar 05:34