Featured Tune: "One Minute Of America" from Bastien Pons

Toss out everything you've been told about what makes a rock track. Bastien Pons’ “One Minute Of America” is built on something intense: atmosphere. As the fifth track on his debut album Blinded, Pons, a French sound artist trained in the avant-garde discipline of musique concrète, drops a track that hits as hard as any doom metal crusher, but with the finesse of a shadow sliding across your bedroom wall.

Let’s be clear: Pons is a one-man army, one who smashes together sound and vision like nobody's business. “One Minute Of America” is good in holding back and building tension. It kicks off based on a found recording—a raw, sixty-second slice of American street life. You hear the ghosts of everyday existence: footsteps, distant voices, the ambient hum of a city. It’s that fleeting moment you almost miss, captured and immortalized.

Then, the genius kicks in. A slow, dark, offbeat kick drum pulses into the mix. We're not talking some frantic rhythm here—it's this steady, calm, slightly off-centre heartbeat that anchors everything without pushing too hard. It's that minimalist, punishing groove that bands like Swans (yeah, they're a big influence on Pons) would absolutely kill for. This primal pulse becomes the track's rock-solid spine, hypnotic and somehow both soothing and ominously brooding at the same time.

“One Minute Of America” comes from intention, from texture, and from the emotional weight of silence itself. Bastien Pons has created something that's less "song" and more tangible, grainy environment.