Why play guitar when you can build your own mutant orchestra? Pascal Wyse meets Pierre Bastien, the musical mad scientist with a celebrity following

The resulting album Bandiera Di Carta features Magaletti on percussion, Relleen on synthesizers and organ, and Bastien on prepared trumpet, rubber band, tin foil and bass ocarina.

For decades, he has been building musical machines called “mecanoids” after the Meccano construction sets that he prefers. In the 1980s, he began releasing music with his “mecanium,” an orchestra of these creations. Currently, Bastien has more than 60 mecanoids in his collection. “For me, they are just companions now,” he says over Zoom. “I’ve built many of them, lots of them. And sometimes I pick one from the box, and I play with it, and it’s a bit like playing with fellow musicians, with a friend.”

Créateur de merveilleux automates sonores, Pierre Bastien n’est pas seulement un bricoleur de génie: il est aussi l’inventeur d’un langage musical a nul autre pareil. Son album Mecanoid sort sur le label dirigé par Aphex Twin.

[…] but what a pleasure it is to jump off the train and find oneself immersed in the shadow theatre and machines of Pierre Bastien.