You may have seen Bastien Vandevelde somewhere along the east coast this past summer playing drums on tour with Tall Juan, or maybe you’ll recognize him from this video ;). Today however, we’re stoked to introduce you to “Beastie VEE”, Vandevelde’s solo project.
The first single from the project, “Sungasm”, is a haunting, beat heavy track that was influenced by african beats, and his love for Marilyn Manson. It’s tough to see, but according to Vandevelde, he’s even wearing a Marilyn Manson t-shirt in the video.
“It’s my lucky shirt that I wear at every show. It’s one of my oldest shirt ever, it’s a christmas gift from my step mom when I was 11 years old. It’s an XL size, so you can imagine how it was on me at the time!”
The track was recorded (and filmed) at Motorbass recording studio in Paris, where Bastien used to work as an assistant to producer Philippe Zdar (Zdar also was the one who gave him the name ‘Beastie VEE”). Although he is only seen (barely) playing drums in the video, Beastie VEE plays all the instruments on the track, and uses backing tracks when performing live, so the video is a pretty accurate depiction of his live show.
In creating the video, Director Pierre Denis and Vandevelde used “strobe light apps” on the their iPhones to light the drum part, and Vandevelde filmed the eqq sequence in his apartment.
“I cooked an egg, and when I got the texture I wanted, I put it on a support and made it turn with my turntable, I filmed it from the top with my iPhone, OH YEAH ! extreme DIY …”
Check out the mesmerizing video below, and keep an eye out for his debut solo album “Beastie VEE”, which will be coming out soon.