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WILLIAM BASINSKI

William Basinski

The Disintegration Loops - Arcadia Archive Edition

Since the turn of this century, perhaps no other modern composition has had a more resonant healing effect than The Disintegration Loops. Composer William Basinski’s deteriorating analog tape loops evolved from melodic symphonies to melancholic silence over a span of time that uncannily turned passing minutes into pensive lifetimes. In her foreword for the new box set reissue of The Disintegration Loops, the pioneering multimedia storyteller Laurie Anderson describes the impact of this transformation in poetic detail: “These dissolving sounds, this emptying space, has gained my complete confidence. They are taking me somewhere. I am willingly following these sounds, becoming more and more transparent.” The Disintegration Loops – Arcadia Archive Edition is an expansive new box set that includes the entire 5-hour suite of iconic work. Newly remastered from the original recordings by Josh Bonati, the hefty package includes eight vinyl records (or four CDs for the less analog-inclined) in sturdy full-color jackets featuring the restored original artwork, and a new 1000-word foreword by Laurie Anderson – all housed in a striking heavyweight, case-wrapped box. It is the ideal encapsulation of one of the 21st century’s most truly transcendent works. As Anderson concludes in her foreword, “this music has created another world, a world to be carried away in.”

TRACK LISTING

1. Dlp 1.1 (1:03:35)
2. Dlp 2.1 (10:50)
3. Dlp 2.2 (32:41)
4. Dlp 3 (41:53)
5. Dlp 4 (20:12)
6. Dlp 5 (52:19)
7. Dlp 6 (40:32)
8. Dlp 1.2 (20:41)
9. Dlp 1.3 (12:02)

William Basinski

September 23rd

The first new release by iconic composer, William Basinski, since the hugely acclaimed Lamentations (2020). September 23rd is the first release in William Basinski's new Arcadia Archive series. Recorded in September 1982 in his first loft in the pre-gentrified DUMBO neighbourhood in Brooklyn, New York, September 23rd is a recently unearthed early entry in what has become a hugely inspirational and influential catalogue. Built from a piano piece that Basinski composed in high school in the mid-1970s, September 23rd quickly evolved into a vastly different work.

As Basinski explains: "The original piano recordings were made on a piano belonging to my downstairs neighbour, John Epperson – later known more famously as world-renowned drag artist, Lypsinka – at 351 Jay Street aka Casa Degli Artisti, our first loft in New York. It was recoded with a little portable (probably Radio Shack) cassette deck sitting on the piano as I improvised a piece I had been working on since high school. It was pretty terrible, but when I did the John Giorno/William Burroughs cut-up technique, suddenly I had something to put through the Frippertronics loop and feedback loop tape delay system – and boy did I get results. A very prolific time for a young, wacked-out queen in NYC."

“At its best, William Basinski’s music inspires the sort of rapturous testimony usually reserved for peak experiences, cult leaders and the dead.” – Pitchfork. 

STAFF COMMENTS

Barry says: A wonderfully immersive piece from Basinski that has some of the hallmarks of his legendary 'Disintegration Loops' series, but with a more melancholic edge. Flickering echoes and building ambient washes coalesce together into a river of piano-adjacent echoes and barely perceptible atmospheres.

TRACK LISTING

1. September 23rd (40:11


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