French sound artist Bastien Pons has made his debut album, and it’s weird in all the right ways. “BLINDED” runs seven tracks across 49 minutes of industrial ambience that sounds like someone left a microphone running in a haunted factory.
Pons studied musique concrète under Bernard Fort, and you can hear that training in how he layers field recordings with drones and processed textures. “Babi Yar” opens with unsettling atmosphere, then “Black Clouds” with Frank Zozky gets even stranger. These aren’t songs you’ll hum along to – they creep forward at their own pace.
The smart move here is how Pons uses restraint. Instead of blasting you with noise, he lets silence hang between the distorted bits. “I Did Not Kill Her” combines fractured vocals with ambient decay in ways that stick with you. “One Minute Of America” packs intensity into its brief runtime, and the closing “Et Si Un Jour” featuring Paz ends things on a ghostly note.
This definitely isn’t for everyone. If you want something challenging and atmospheric, though, “BLINDED” delivers. You’ll probably need to hear it a few times to really get it.
Follow Bastien Pons on Instagram for more experimental soundscapes.
