William Basinski

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William Basinski (born 1958 in Houston, Texas) is an American composer, clarinetist, saxophonist, and sound & video artist. Born 1958 to a Polish-American father and a German-American mother.

A classically trained clarinetist, he studied jazz saxophone and composition at North Texas State University in the late 70’s. In 1978, inspired by minimalists such as Steve Reich and Brian Eno, he began developing his own vocabulary using tape loops and old reel to reel tape decks. He developed his meditative, melancholy style experimenting with short looped melodies played against themselves creating feedback loops.

His first release was Shortwavemusic. Although created in 1983, it was first released on vinyl in a small edition in 1998 by Carsten Nicolai's Raster-Noton label. This was followed by Watermusic, released in 2000 on 2062. Another 2 disc major work which preceded the shortwavemusic studies was Variations: A Movement in Chrome Primitive 1980. It was finally released in 2004 by David Tibet on the Durtro/Die Stadt label. At the time this work was created Basinski was experimenting with compositions for piano and tape loops.

Throughout the 1980s, Basinski created a vast archive of experimental works using tape loop and delay systems, found sounds and shortwave radio static. He was a member of many bands including Gretchen Langheld Ensemble and House Afire. In 1989, he opened his own performance space, "Arcadia". In the 1990s he performed and produced records and intimate underground shows there for various NYC artists including Antony, Diamanda Galás, Rasputina, The Murmurs, and his own ad-hoc experimental electronic/improv. band, Life On Mars. In 2000 he made a film titled Fountain with artists James Elaine and Roger Justice.

In August and September 2001, he set to work on what would become his most recognizable piece, the four-volume epic, The Disintegration Loops. The recordings are based on old tapeloops which had degraded in quality. While attempting to salvage the recordings in a digital format, the tapes slowly crumbled and left a timestamp history of their demise. [1][2]

[edit] Discography

• Shortwavemusic (Raster-Noton, 1998)
• Watermusic (2062, 2000)
• The Disintegration Loops (2062, 2002)
• The River (Raster-Noton, 2002)
• The Disintegration Loops II (2062, 2003)
• Watermusic II (2062,2003)
• Melancholia (2062, 2003)
• The Disintegration Loops III (2062, 2003)
• A Red Score in Tile (Three Poplars, 2003)
• The Disintegration Loops IV (2062, 2003)
• Variations: A Movement in Chrome Primitive (Durtro/Die Stadt, 2004)
• Silent Night (2062, 2004)
• The Garden of Brokenness (2062, 2006)
• Variations For Piano & Tape (2062, 2006)
• Shortwavemusic, CD (2062, 2007)
• El Camino Real (2062, 2007)
• Melancholia (2008)

Basinski's releases are distributed by Forced Exposure in North America,

Cargo Records in the UK, Die Stadt in Europe and P*DIS in Japan.

[edit] External links

• Official site
• William Basinski at Allmusic
• MySpace page