Observations

ErikM & Pierre Bastien

With one exception, this record is a live recording of a concert performed at Les Ateliers Claus in Brussels, in March 2024.
It was preceded by three short hours of improvisation over the two previous days, during which ErikM and I carefully observed each other’s playing.
Both of us had brought several cases of equipment—enough, really, to perform multiple concerts without ever repeating ourselves.
Erik had brought his turntables, along with sophisticated electronic devices and a near-infinite sound bank.
As for me, I came with both a mechanical orchestra and a wide range of acoustic instruments.
Over the course of two sessions, we eliminated the superfluous and the ineffective.
On the night of the concert, it was through close listening—of each sound, each direction taken by one or the other, each intention, each break—that we composed this record in real time : vigilant and observant, like the pairs of eyes on the album cover.
Jean Dubuffet used to define his music as something untidy and dirty. But here, it’s a Dubuffet returning from a long trip to Africa, with haunting rhythms that go as far as trance, corrupted by ErikM’s UK-Drill.

Sub Rosa records