“BLINDED” By Bastien Pons

In an era marked by overproduction and a barrage of stimuli, French experimental artist Bastien Pons is carving out a distinct path within the realms of ambient and experimental music. His debut album, “Blinded,” is a tactile sound sculpture that weaves together image and sound, perception and emotion, capturing stillness and introspection. Having studied black and white photography and musique concrète with Bernard Fort, Pons is not just a musician, but rather a sound visualist. His visual sensibilities allow him to transmute silence into shadow, melody into texture, and evoke emotion through field recordings. With “Blinded,” he manifests experiences instead of traditional compositions. The seven tracks are deep, brooding meditations on perception and the unspoken, set to a 46-minute duration.

The album opens with “Babi Yar,” which references the site of a Nazi massacre during World War II. You can feel the historical weight in every note or sonic echo. To evoke the emotional landscape, Pons employs ambient drones, ghostly static, and processed field recordings. The piece unfolds like fog drifting over forgotten terrain. It is cinematic, austere, profoundly mournful, yet never teetering into melodrama. Minimalism confronts the listener with a void and compels them to confront what is not. It sets the tone for the rest of the album: this is not about storytelling but rather sensory memory.

The collaboration with Frank Zozky, as introduced in “Black Clouds,” results in one of the most texturally rich pieces on the album. Here, industrial grit begins to take a more defined form. Pulses of mechanical rhythm hover beneath layers of static decay. Zozky’s contribution feels like an echo bouncing through an abandoned tunnel. The track is turbulent and introspective, storm clouds gathering in slow motion. There’s a simmering undercurrent of muted aggression, but Pons never lets it erupt. He controls his sonic elements with expert precision, balanced between tension and restraint.

Certainly, “Blinded” establishes itself as the emotional core of the album. This is most likely Pons’ most personal and self-reflective point as an artist. Using soft and whispered textures along with faint melodic fragments, he scrutinizes the metaphorical burden of blindness, not as a physical condition but rather a psychological and emotional one. It is the sound of attempting to see with shut eyes. The kind of vulnerability here is unique; the sonic nudity is rare, and few artists would dare to strip down this much. Every silence in between the sounds of vulnerability speaks astonishingly great, and what is not said becomes much more valuable than what is uttered.   

The most uncomfortable piece, “I Did Not Kill Her,” is unexplainably layered. Is it an accusation, a confession, or a defense? Again, Pons does not answer. He instead sculpts the track with rumbling low-end textures, distant echoes, and distorted sonic pieces that resemble broken memories. It’s discomforting but in an amazing way. Lacking closure, this piece flourishes in dissonance. Much of the album feels as if the listener not only has to decipher what’s happening but also needs to complete the empty spaces using their own emotions to fill in the shadows.

At just over a minute, “One Minute of America” is both expansive and brief. It condenses cultural conflict, ecological deterioration, and ambient disorientation into a tightly wound sonic sketch. This track brings to mind surveillance, highways, and the radio static images of an empire in decay flickering through a broken projector. Pons is not overtly political; however, his work invites sociocultural interpretation. Here, he seems to present a sonic critique of disconnection and noise. The brevity of the piece adds to its impact: it’s a flash, a whisper, a glimpse before it vanishes.

A shift towards intimacy can be traced in “Charlotte.” The textures become more tender, and the melodic structures somewhat more distinctive. There is a sense of mourning here for a person, or perhaps a moment in time. This track is emotionally accessible, although it remains far from conventional. It is reminiscent of faded memories, like viewing an old photograph through gauze. The soft, minimal electronic sounds swell gently and persistently fade, like emotional tides. It’s quiet, intimate, and cinematic, the way a single still image can convey greater emotional depth than a film.

The closing track “Et Si Un Jour,” featuring Paz, gives the album a poetic, resonant finish. The title “And If One Day” hints at the fleeting nature of the piece. With Paz, the voice adds warmth to the album’s spectral textures and doesn’t dominate but hovers like a ghost. Perhaps the most emotionally honest song, it remains abstract. It has the feeling of a goodbye, not just to the album but a part of oneself, marking the perfect final page to the sonic photo album of shadow and silence. What distinguishes “Blinded” from other experimental albums is the blend of sound and visual thinking. Bastien Pons goes beyond composing music; he constructs feelings. Each track is akin to a monochrome photograph rendered in audio, blurred edges, fine grain, negative space, and stark contrast. He is influenced by The Residents, Lustmord, Coil, Meredith Monk, and Swans, but internalizes instead of imitates. His aesthetic remains distinct and unapologetically his.

More than an ambient album, “Blinded” serves as a meditation on perception, created by an artist who knows both the power of silence and the texture of noise. It invites deep listening, preferably in the dark on headphones, where eerie clicks, breaths, and hums can unfold like an abstract film reel. It’s an act of surrender: you don’t just listen to “Blinded,” you immerse yourself in it. This debut album came as a shocking self-assurance. It emerged along with a whisper of other voices, and it branched out to fill a void in sound spaces. Pons managed to create something that pours out instead of seeking attention. In contrast to the growing loudness of the world, “Blinded” encourages embracing stillness and introspective listening from within.

Like many others, I would also like to dedicate a few words to Bastien Pons for stepping thoughtfully into the world of experimental music and painting it with such a distinct color. For those people interested in music that touches their core, do not look further. This album is an unapologetic outburst of desires disguised behind the balanced vocals we have grown to love. For all those who are eager to open their ears and listen, “Blinded” is now available worldwide on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, Deezer, and Bandcamp. Step inside, but leave your expectations at the door.

As for press inquiries, collaboration opportunities, or any promotional work: Phone: +33 6 85 56 20 99. Email: bastien_pons_music@icloud.com

Location: Lyon, France. “Blinded isn’t just an album – it’s a grainy mirror, held up to the way we listen, feel, and see,”

Written by Manuel