Bastien Pons is a French pro who uses field recordings and industrial textures like a guitarist uses a wall of amps – to build a feeling, a space, a goddamn atmosphere. His track, “One Minute Of America,” from the debut album Blinded, is a prime example. This is rock and roll in its spirit, not its letter.
Pons, a maestro of musique concrète, builds the entire piece around a found recording: sixty seconds of real American street life. Footsteps, distant voices, the ghost of the everyday. It’s got all the grit and grain of reality. Then Pons does what every great rock producer does: he lays down a pulse. A dark, offbeat kick drum rolls in, steady and calm but you can’t ignore it.
As the track unfolds, Pons becomes this mad scientist of sound, letting textures and harmonics bubble up and morph around that central groove. He takes that one-minute snippet and stretches it, bends it, flips it into something massive—like you’re floating through a dream or trying to grab onto a fading memory. It’s trippy and kinda throws you off balance, the way killer psychedelic rock should. Nobody’s forcing some story on you here. It’s just this vibe that rolls out however it wants.
“One Minute Of America” throws down like a fearless piece of sonic art. Here’s the thing—you don’t need wailing guitars to hit hard. Armed with just a field recording, a wicked sense of rhythm, and ears that hear possibilities everywhere, Bastien Pons has built something that hits your brain and your gut at the same time.