William Basinski and the Art of Slowly Dissolving out of Existence

Perhaps the most relaxing contributions to this seminar’s playlist, possibly even the ones with the most interesting production history must be the works of William Basinski. The New York City native’s compositions are basically constructed from some of his old recordings of ambient music that are contained on decaying twenty-year-old tapes. His “The Disintegration Loops” are literal loops of old sound tapes disintegrating as they repeatedly pass the tape recorder’s head, thus, creating a constantly deteriorating sound quality and different sounds. The idea as simple as it sounds is probably not as easily executed since Basinski still had to find the perfect timestamps to loop in order to create an artwork that compliments each other while being distinguishable. 

I find “The Disintegration Loops” truly fascinating and utterly remarkable. It is and feels very special, authentic, and genuine to listen to the actual decay of matter (in this case the tapes), instead of having it artificially generated by musical interfaces and programs. Listening to “The Disintegration Loops” offers a variety of approaches: you can either listen to it as ambient, background music while working, studying, or relaxing, or you could seriously and profoundly indulge in the perplexity of the song's gradual progress towards inevitable and irreversible decay. On the one hand, it sounds really relaxing, hypnotic, and calming. On the other hand, it is fascinatingly dark, spacious, and eery all the while suggesting the inevitable decay of and thus the inevitable end to all matter in the universe. In a way, especially the “Dlp 3”, feels like traveling through time, to the end of the universe or in other words as though one is falling into a black hole while, due to the time dilation that takes place as you get closer to the singularity, the contact to the universe slowly fades into void and nothingness as you disintegrate. 

Basinski created a majestic, captivating, profound, eery, and dark work of musical art that captures the inevitable end of all things as authentically as no other piece does. Although the thought of infinite void seems to cause more existential crisis and dread, there is something triumphant about this completely depressing idea, offering some comfort to the isolation it evokes.