William Basinski - The Disintegration Loops D|P 3: Relaxing but saddening

 

“D|P 3” is part of the so called “Disintegration Loops” by William Basinski. The track itself is not very complicated, nor is it difficult to concentrate on as other minimalistic songs that feature quick and short loops. Basinski’s approach is a very calm and relaxing melody which sounds very pleasant to me. This is even more surprising when taking into account that Basinski was inspired by Steven Reich with whom – or rather his music - I had a quite unpleasant experience.

The song is a clear loop of a calming tune; the drums play very slow, so one has plenty of time to focus on the single elements and enjoy them. This is also supported by the duration of the song: Almost 42 minutes of an easy to grasp melody, but it comes with a twist. Basinski did not choose this duration randomly; the Disintegration Loops are recordings of his earlier work with were not digitalized at that point. The process of digitalization requires his old tapes to be played at least once which due to the old technology would slightly damage the tape. Thus, the recording of the tapes being played in a loop initialized their slow decay which we can listen to in the digitalized version.

The idea that the only person who could experience this concert live was Basinski himself sounds pretty romantic to me. He let his music play as long as it was able to be listened to. This fact in addition to the calm sound itself is probably what evokes the strong feelings in the audience. Thoughts of anything in the past that is lost during a life are addressed. I felt nostalgia but also sadness infesting my mind. After about 10 minutes the first clearly hearable signs of disintegration came up and the process of decay pushed into my consciousness. I found it a bit less pleasant to listen to, but I was intrigued how far this would go.

Close to the end, the music only consisted of fragments and it struck me with sadness – harder than someone else’s music should. I loved the feelings I had listening to the same melody over and over again and they came to an end. I wanted them to last just a little longer, but this would probably have been my answer to any duration.