William Basinski

James William Basinski ( born June 25, 1958 in Houston, Texas) is an American ambient avant-garde composer. He is also a clarinetist, saxophonist, sound and video artists. He is best known for his four-part album The Disintegration Loops ( 2002-03 ), which consists of photographs of decaying, old tapes of his earlier ambient music.

Life

William Basinski was born in Houston in 1958. As a classically trained clarinetist, he studied in the late 1970s, jazz saxophone and composition at North Texas State University. In 1978 he began, inspired by minimal music work of musicians such as Steve Reich and Brian Eno, to develop his own music. He used old tape loops and cassettes and short, looped melodies that have been repeatedly reproduced and layered over each other and thus generated feedback. This he inspired musicians such as Philip Jeck.

His first publication was Short Wave Music. Although it was produced in 1983, it was published in a limited edition in 1998 on the German label Raster-Noton. This was followed by Water Music, which was produced and distributed in 2062 Records of Basinskis own record label. A 2CD Set Variations: A Movement in Chrome Primitive: 1980 followed in 2004, it was released by David Tibet on the label Durtro / The City. . At the time when the album was created (1980 ), Basinski was experimenting with compositions for piano and tapes.

In the 1980s, Basinski created a large archive of experimental work by use of tape loops and Hall systems, objets trouvé and shortwave radio noise. He was a member of the experimental bands like Gretchen Langheld ensemble or House Afire. In 1989 he opened his gallery and the Cultural Arcadia. In the 90s he appeared there with various artists from New York, such as Antony Hegarty, Diamanda Galás, Rasputina and The Murmurs. He produced and sold there as well his records and concerts organized for friendly acts and bands. He also campaigned on such occasions for his own improvisation band Life on Mars. 2000 produced the film Fountain with artists James Elaine and Roger Justice.

Basinskis releases on his own label, 2062 will be distributed by Forced Exposure in North America, Cargo Records in Großbritanniern, The city in Europe, P- Dis ( formerly Plop distribution) in Japan, and digitally from Amazon and iTunes.

The Disintegration Loops

In August and September 2001, he began to work for the work that should be are so far the best known: The four-part The Disintegration Loops album. The recordings came about during the experiment a digitizing its tape archive of own ambient recordings. As Basinski tried to play the recordings from the 1980s, the magnetic layer broke up due to wear and tear of the ligaments and led in this way to special audio results, which recorded Basinski.

Discography

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