Bastian Void :: Polyshades (Moon Villain)

Years on from his tape-wrangling beginnings, with two Japan tours and a cult following behind him, Joseph Bastardo’s mid-2025 release Polyshades should have marked a defining moment for both the artist and the outer edges of electronic music—even if its quiet arrival now makes this praise overdue.

Memory loops, carefully rewired

Some way on from early underground tape-wrangling days, behind him a sturdy body of work (and two tours of Japan), plus design of a vintage synth book, release of Bastian Void‘s Polyshades mid-2025 should’ve been an event in Joseph Bastardo and electronic music’s small world—worthy of note, if not accolades; its somewhat under-the-radar status is, then, justification, were it needed, for however belated appraisal.

It has been noted ‘how nostalgia crystallizes around technology, how the limitations of old machines become their most expressive qualities, how the crude becomes luminous through the alchemy of distance.’ (Rose, FD, 2025). Testimony to this transformative power, used wisely, is borne by Polyshades, product of BV‘s years at the ’ware*-face, wringing emotive freight from vintage machines and old soundchips, finding there ‘a kind of generative poetry that speaks to childhood wonder and adult longing alike’ (Rose, FD, 2025). And this release (a twelfth, though a first on vinyl), drawing as it does on diverse vectors—from (’70s) Electronic and (’80s) Environmental Music, (’90s) MS-DOS soundtracks and (’00s) IDM—might just see BV reach peak practice.

In sum, Polyshades may transcend a millenial micro-trend of Synth-fetish Retromania through its essential authenticity, claiming nostalgia as vital affective technology v. fossilized gesture; a real labor of love, evidenced not least by recording spanning three years over an array of vintage gear (eg. restored Apple Mac SE running an old-school generative sequencer). With its hybridization of vintage with modern, it may lure in adepts of BoC, AFX and OPN, in spirit if not sound, esp. accompanied by viewing the vinyl package (color 180g LP +printed inner sleeve).

[*Gear used: Polyend Tracker, Korg Mono/poly, Roland: JV-880, JV-1080, JV-2080, JUNO-60, MKS-20, Mt-32, SH-101, Apple Macintosh SE, Eurorack Modular System, Expressive E Osmose, Hologram Microcosm, Alesis Quadraverb, Yamaha SPX1000]

Polyshades Is available on Moon Villain. [Bandcamp]