Pierre Bastien
19-02-2006

kurregomma: Hi Pierre!
I'm glad to be able to communicate with you. The first time i heard your MECANOID L.p. i really enjoyed. I like your A-tonal rhythm like an old dusty vinyl. How is you source of inspiration?

Ser Pierre Bastien: Rhythmically speaking I always enjoyed listening to my father's 78 tours and what I especially love in them is this superimposition of the scratch rhythm of the needle over the rhythm of the recorded music.
Now when two of my machines are playing together I get the same enjoyment because each machine has its own motor and speed and tempo and the two machines are constantly chasing each other.
When it goes well you get a very rich groove out of this pursuit: something really far from any military music, you know, with this heavy lonely beat made to have everybody in sync and under command.

K: In MECANOID L.p. you have used Palindromic names for the tracks. Its for fun or those names hides another meaning?
When you'll release an album with oxymorons?

sPB: The joyful melancholy of my unsung songs is already empty-ishly full of oxymorons. As for the palindromic names of the tracks, it is like putting a motor into the words that loops them into a mechanical wheel.
It is also a way to avoid psychology and romanticism: by creating a palindrome you get a meaning that you were not expecting.
The titles are then related to the musics much less through their meanings than through the visual aspect of the symmetrical combination of letters.

K: Could you describe your live set-up?

sPB: On stage I'm bringing three home-made devices:
the rhythm section is a meccano machine with two motors and a ventilator. the motors control two mechanisms playing on some amplified meccano parts.
On every mechanism I can change the terminal module in order to change the type of rhythm, a bit like a dj is changing records on his two turntables.
Meanwhile the fan blows on a membrane that is equipped with a piece of paper and a paper clip: the airflow makes the sheet of paper waving and the paper clip beating the membrane. By changing the speed of both motors and fan I get different grooves. Also the combination of the fixed tempos provided by the motors and the unsteady movements of the paper give a lot of unexpected rhythmical combination.
In front of this is the casiola: a small keyboard with a mechanism on its side that makes a sort of home-made piano roll turning over the keys.
I build the rolls out of cardboard and pins that push the keys. I have several of those rolls that I can change easily to switch from some rapid riffs to some languid chords.
The last device is a home-made record player: through a simple system its arm goes up and down over the 7 inches records,
picking just a part of the groove in a rhythmical way.
A video camera settled in front of the three machines is filming the process with my fingers manipulating the modules and rolls and records.
The image is projected in real time in a big scale to allow people to enjoy the composition with their ears and eyes as well.

K: Do you have a certain procedure for the show or do you improvise a lot?

sPB: A procedure, yes, though a lot of freedom inside. As I am the only human being on stage I feel free to decide to change duration,
intentions and combination of robots according to the reaction of the listeners.

K: How recording in studio your meccano?Do you have a favourite host sequencer for recording?

sPB: I'm using a Korg direct-to-disk system.

K: I have read that in 1986 you have begun the construction of your orchestra called Meccanium, how have you conceived this idea?

sPB: The first machines were built in the seventies.
The very first system was made even before, in 1968. I was a kid by then. Because of the big strikes of May-June in France my college was closed. Naturally I put the ambient situationist ideas into music: I subverted the dictates of my metronome by settling two pans both sides
and I played some prepared guitar along with this first robot.

K: Do you know the concept of the cognitive psychology called "man-machine",
then resumed from the Kraftwerk? Which is your relationship with technology today?

sPB: No, I'm not familiar with this philosophy.
I'm more into the views of Picabia and Duchamp and Roussel.
There is some irony in my machines: through some simple mechanisms they short-circuit the big hi-tech industry as well as the long musical apprenticeship. The way they work is rather derisory compared with the human mechanics.
They don't pretend to play what a human musician could not play - faster, more difficult parts etc. All the contrary: they play less than humans. I'm often using new technologies, like right now to answer your questions. As far as feelings are concerned however (love, music etc.) I prefer not.

K: What are your most important musical influences?

sPB: Some repetitive music from the African tradition, the very early jazz, Satie's "musiques d'ameublement", the Portsmouth Sinfonia,
every audacious contemporary electronic music...

K: What about Rephlex?
You are so different from the other productions but at the same time you are in line with the brilliant madness of this label.

sPB: This question is for Richard and Grant who choose the artists.
They invited me to join the label in 2000 and gave me complete freedom to make music. When listening to some other albums from the catalogue I always feel proud to be part of the team: I love Cylob's music and Bogdan's and Aphex's and Sqarepuher's... I feel in good company.

K: Why in France don't you have the bidet?

sPB: We loose traditions.
We had it in the past, right before the computer era.
But we have the bilingual palindrome "Mon Eva rve ton image, bidet" that says "Ted, I beg, am I not ever a venom?"

Per more info, biografy, discografy and others:

http://www.pierrebastien.com
http:/www.rephlex.com
http://www.romaeuropa.net/festival/schede_compagnie2005/aphex_twin.htm

kurregomma

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