William James Basinski



William Basinski is a musician, composer who has worked in experimental media for over twenty years in NYC, expanding the boundaries of the aural landscape. A classically trained clarinetist, he studied jazz saxophone and composition at North Texas State University in the late 70s. He developed his meditative, melancholy style experimenting with short looped melodies played against themselves, creating feedback loops. His early studies with piano and tape, from 1980-82, 'Variations: A Movement in Chrome Primitive', will be released in September 2002 for the first time on David Tibet's London label, Durtro. In 1982, he began experimenting with pulling sound from the airwaves. By sampling short melodies from Muzak radio onto tape loops of varying lengths, slowing them down, and mixing them together with a symphony of shortwave radio static in real time, he created his 'Shortwave Music' series. A selection of these pieces was released to critical acclaim in 1998 by Carsten Nicolai's German avant-garde label, Noton. The culmination of these studies, the 1984 masterwork, 'The River', a 90-minute 'music of the spheres' released on Raster-Noton. Basinski's last release, 'Watermusic', was released on his own label, 2062, in February 2001. A tranquil, shimmering ambient 60-minute piece created on the Voyetra Synthesizer over a period of months spanning the turn of the century, 'Watermusic' has received critical acclaim and is available through distributors in America, Europe and Japan. His new pieces, 'The Disintegration Loops', were created in August 2001. In the process of archiving and digitising old tape-loops, Basinski discovered a group of bucolic loops which began to disintegrate during the archiving process. These pieces evoke the life and death of the American pastoral landscape.

Shortwavemusic (LP) Raster-Noton 1998
Watermusic (CDr) 2062 2001
The Disintegration Loops (CD) 2062 2002
The River (2xCD) Raster-Noton 2002
A Red Score In Tile (LP, Ltd) Three Poplars 2003
Melancholia (CDr, Album, Ltd) 2062 2003
The Disintegration Loops II (CD) 2062 2003
The Disintegration Loops III (CD, Album) 2062 2003
The Disintegration Loops IV (CD) 2062 2003
Untitled (2x7") Robot Records 2003
Watermusic II (CD) 2062 2003
Disintegration Loop 1.1 (DVD) Vectors, Headz 2004
Silent Night (CD) 2062 2004
Untitled (CD, Album) Spekk 2004
Variations: A Movement In Chrome Primitive (2xCD) Die Stadt, Durtro 2004
Melancholia (CD, Album, RE) 2062 2005
The Garden Of Brokenness (CD) 2062 2005
Watermusic (CD, Album) 2062 2005
Variations For Piano & Tape (CD, Dig) 2062 2006
El Camino Real (CD, Album) 2062 2007
Shortwavemusic (CD) 2062 2007
The River (2xCD, Album) 2062 2008
Untitled 1 - 3 (CD, RE, RM, Ltd) Line 2008
92982 (CD, Album) 2062 2009

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