Pierre Bastien

“From free improvisation and the inventive jazz scene to electronic circles, Pierre Bastien is an artist whose unique creative grid has left him free for over 40 years. From his obstinate bass playing in the mythical “Rock’n’Roll Station” with Jac Berrocal and Vince Taylor to Pascal Comelade’s Bel Canto Orchestra, of which he was a member from the start, Pierre Bastien’s collaborations with a whole circle of singular artists have been numerous over the years, leading him to work with Pierrick Sorin, Aphex Twin, Robert Wyatt and Issey Mikaye. Pierre Bastien’s musical device, articulated around
traditional instruments, motors, objects and paper, is at the crossroads of learned and popular music. (…) Organised around miniature and fragile machinery, but also shadows, images and superimpositions, Pierre Bastien’s concerts and installations open up a space of visualisation, which exists as much on stage as under our eyelids: otherworldly flutes, headless hands, women musicians, loops and water bubbles played on the trumpet form a matrix from which a singular magic awakens, that of the tiny moments that transform certain concerts into great moments.” Marie-Pierre Bonniol, 2015