Clot Magazine

The next mixtape comes from Akusmi, the new project moniker of French-born, London-based composer, multi-instrumentalist and producer Pascal Bideau. It's a dive into Indonesian sounds territories, following his recently published album Fleeting Future (Tonal Union, 2022), which was partly inspired by the artist's journey to the east-Asian country. In Indonesia, Bideau immersed himself in traditional Gamelan and gong music, and many of the themes, motifs and melodies on Fleeting Future stem from the 'Slendro' scale, one of the essential tuning systems used in Gamelan. However, it is not musical scales but scales as in the size or extent of things that most fascinates Bideau. Specifically, he explains the compelling way things dramatically change when you shift from any given scale to another." From the atomic to the celestial, the micro and macro universes of dizzying complexity co-exist within each other. Bideau, who also teaches music production and sound/visual installation at the Roundhouse and the Unive