Bastien Pons

Blurring the lines between sound and image, Bastien Pons transforms listening into spatial experience. With Blinded, he builds sonic architecture from silence, texture, and emotion — like slow-moving black-and-white photographs.

1. Sound & photography — how do they influence each other?

For me, sound and photography share the same raw material: texture, contrast, and silence. In photography, I work in black and white — stripping away distractions, focusing on grain, shadow, and absence. In sound, I do the same. Blinded is not just composed, it’s framed. Each piece is like a photograph that moves very slowly, where silence works as the negative space, and noise becomes the grain.

2. Blinded feels like an installation, not a traditional album. What was your vision?

I didn’t want to make a collection of songs; I wanted to build a space. From the beginning, the idea was to create something immersive, closer to an installation you step into. Each track is less a “song” than a room — a sonic architecture where you can wander, sit still, or even get lost.

3. Translating heavy themes like Babi Yar or Charlotte into sound without words

When I work with historical or tragic themes, I avoid literal storytelling. Instead, I focus on atmosphere, rhythm, and the physical weight of sound. For Babi Yar, I wanted the music to feel oppressive, almost suffocating. For Charlotte, the sounds of protests and human voices are not background — they are the story itself, raw and unpolished. It’s about letting reality seep through the composition rather than narrating it.

4. 4. Silence and texture as compositional tools
   Silence is not the absence of sound; it’s a presence. Sometimes it carries more tension than any drone or note. I treat silence like an instrument, deciding where it breathes, where it cuts, where it forces the listener to confront themselves. Texture then becomes the counterpart — the way a photograph might let the grain dominate the image. Together, they shape the emotional gravity of the piece.
   5. Influences: Lustmord, Coil, Swans… and beyond
   I listen to absolutely every style of music — from classical to musique concrète, from the most experimental jazz to electronic. Lustmord taught me about vastness — how sound can become an environment. Coil showed me the power of ambiguity and transformation. Swans revealed how repetition and sheer weight can break you open emotionally. But I’m just as inspired by The Residents, by darker industrial pioneers like SPK, by the surreal collages of Nurse With Wound, or the intensity of 2kilos & More. These artists all expand the idea of what sound can do. I don’t try to replicate them — instead, I filter these lessons through my own practice, closer to photography and concrete sound, to shape something personal, fragile, and direct.
   6. What do you hope listeners take away?
   I don’t want listeners to “consume” Blinded as background music. I hope they inhabit it — like entering a dark room where your senses adapt slowly. Maybe they’ll feel unease, maybe calm, maybe both at once. The best outcome for me is if the album slows someone down, forcing them to sit with sound, silence, and themselves in a way they don’t usually do.

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