Bästard

Born from the ashes of Lyon's hardcore band Deity Guns, Bästard is now considered a very important band in the modern musical landscape. During the early 90's, these pioneers have striven for an uncommon sound inspired by Sonic Youth and Einsturzende Neubauten, to name a few. From their beginning, Bästard have maintained a kind of fury, but deployed it masterfully and always with tireless invention. Since Bästard formed from the remains of Deity Guns, they have progressively abandoned their noisy elements to better include new sounds--samples and violin appear on the eponymous album, and this was only a beginning. Always in search of exciting sounds, they came to collaborate with jazz-clarinetist Denis Colin and experimental musician Erik Minkinnen (also famous for his Sister Iodine project). Many songs saw release on EP's and were compiled on "Side Stuff" LP. Bästard reached its peak in 1996 with the release of "Radiant, Discharged, crossed off…", which is still lauded by critics as an essential post-rock work. Recorded by Andy Briant (of Tortoise), this LP remains a classic, ahead of its time, that pushed against the frontiers of music. "The Acoustic Machine" is their complete discography in a 3 CD box set.