Pitchfork

And so another Martin Luther King Day has come and gone and with hardly more than a passing notice. Banks and schools close and there's a brief blurb on the news. But otherwise little notice is paid. Maybe human relations have come so far since King's day that we've forgotten it was no more than four decades ago when things were far different. Maybe. Yet for all the advances our society has made in civility over the last 40 years, we've still got a long way to go. Racism still exists, albeit more subtly than before. Far less subtle in today's society is hatred aimed toward homosexuals, immigrants and robots. Yes, I said robots.

For years robots have been denied the rights you and enjoy each and every day. They're thought of as mere machines, no one ever taking into account that they might just be programmed to feel the pain inflicted by such callous ignorance. And the media is no better. For decades now, TV and movies portrayed robots as killers, servants, single-minded ignoramuses incapable of love, art or beauty. But this is a cultural stereotype, as inaccurate as any other. What about the good robots out there? The relentless workers, the visionaries, the musicians?

That's right. Robots can make music, too. And I'm not talking about the current legions of Powerbook-toting humans. I'm talking about real robots. Like the ones Pierre Bastien employs on his new release Mecanoid. They're small, simple machines, built by the artist out of Maccano parts and small electric motors, single-mindedly devoted to making music. According to the liner notes, these robots play everything from castanets and marimbas to thumb pianos and seven-inch records to steel-drum and an assortment of ancient instruments from around the world.

It's a fair bet that any album that employs such a wide variety of instruments will have a pretty unique, fairly interesting sound. And that Mecanoid does. But this doesn't even take into account the instruments Bastien plays; stand-up bass, electric piano, organ, horns (both prepared and traditional), and some more obscure instruments that I can't even picture. Indeed, this is a disc filled from start to finish with a massive range of sounds. But what about the music?

The robots' musical abilities are limited by their simplicity. They play their instrument with no divergence from a predetermined pattern, essentially creating loops. As such, there's an air of monotony to some of this music-- a clunking, mechanical feel. But when a number of these robots are employed at once, their individual patterns inevitably converge in an infinite number of ways. Bastien makes use of this tendency, setting any number of robots into action, allowing their music to fall into a groove, and then adding flourishes himself where necessary. Most songs start slow and then creep along, with an inhuman determination until they reach their conclusion. It's actually quite fascinating-- often hypnotic-- and most of the songs are short enough that they come to an end long before they cease to be interesting.

Bastien speaks to the hints of inevitability in his music, choosing palindromes for the titles to each of his songs. The titles, he says, "reflect the way these little machines function, whether they are read forwards or backwards, they are understood the same way and this coming or going of words/notes can be imagined as an infinite cycle."

"Tender Red Net" is a calm, peaceful number that begins as a duet between Bastien on organ and a machine playing marimbas. As it moves on, we hear various clankings in the background, rhythmic record scratches and the soothing melody of low-pitched strings. "Revolt Lover" features Bastien on prepared trumpet and bass while his robots manipulate records, suggesting that he puts just as much thought into his own arrangements as those of his machines. On "Deep Speed," Bastien mics the machines themselves and arranges their movements into a rhythm which accompanies a machine playing Casiotone and Bastien's jazzed-up trumpet riffs.

No doubt many will dismiss this album as a gimmick, which is a damned shame. The music made by Bastien and his robot band is every bit as delicate and unique as the methods by which it was created. These machines never give up and Bastien promises to keep working with them. Who knows what sort of music he'll be able to create as his machines continue to evolve. And if we ever see a Robot Rights movement, there's no telling what might happen.