Bastien Pons Unveils Blinded – An Album of Silence and Shadow

A Debut That Breathes In Your Skin

Do you think you’re ready for this? Because I was not.

You know… there are albums you throw on while washing dishes. Blinded is not that.. Bastien Pons, French sound artist and black-and-white photographer, has sculpted something closer to a room you walk into and can’t just leave. Seven tracks, 49 minutes, and the sense that silence is every bit as alive as the noise around it.

This is my first touch with Bastien, and it already feels like stepping into a different gravity. He treats sound like I treat late-night writing. It’s not pretty, but it’s necessary. He studied under Bernard Fort, a pioneer in musique concrète, and you can hear that discipline in how he lets things go. Just imagine… a fridge hum becoming a ghost drone. A protest chant morphing into an atmosphere instead of a slogan. This is music, not wallpaper, my friends – and maybe that’s the point.

When Noise Feels Like Memory

The track list reads like a diary written in some secret code. Babi Yar opens with breath-like stillness, ending like a haunted conversation. Black Clouds shines like a mantra, claustrophobic but calm in the same time, featuring Frank Zozky as if summoning something ritualistic. Then there’s Charlotte, built from protest recordings after the killing of Justin Carr in North Carolina. Layered, mournful, and bigger than a eulogy.

The centrepiece, Blinded, is perception on overload. Metallic drones, voices stretched until they almost collapse. It feels like standing in the middle of a crowded square with your eyes shut, every sound pressing in. I listened to Blinded a couple of times and I still feel the pleasure of going back in. Tense start, wicked drums, a crescendo of emotions and fear.

Hearing Blinded pulled me back to when Enigma first hit my ears, yet this pushes the boundary in a different, sharper way. But I keep coming back to One Minute of America. Sixty seconds of street life stretched into a dream. It’s restrained, and a little unsettling.

I Did Not Kill Her follows like a warped confession trapped on some damaged tape. Loops stutter, rhythms fracture, and the whole thing feels unstable, unresolved. Like arguing with yourself in an empty room. It’s uncomfortable, but that’s where its power sits.

Fragility, Grain, and the Weight of Silence

Yes, you can catch traces of Lustmord, Coil, and The Residents, but the real spine of this work is Bastien’s photographic way of hearing. I think he composes the way he shoots: black, white, shadow, grain. Fragile like a string, raw like fear, textured like skin marked by memory. Even Et Si Un Jour, with Paz whispering “And if one day…” into the void, feels like a picture left half-developed in the darkroom.

I’ve written before about artists who blur mediums, but Bastien fuses them. The sound is tactile, cinematic, and a little unsettling. Like running your hand across a wall that’s still damp from the rain. Oh my God, I respect that.

Blinded is out now on Spotify, Bandcamp, Deezer, Apple and the rest of the digital kingdom. Best listened to with the lights low, no distractions, maybe a glass of something strong. It’s a place to stay.

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