William Basinski: The Disintegration Loops DP 3 - Decay

William Basinski’s pieces are special concerning the ambience they create. Basinski focuses a lot on creating certain atmospheres. Therefore, he uses tape music and the loop structure which means that a specific section of sound material is repeated over and over. His typical approach is demonstrated in “DP 3” in which a loop is repeated for about 40 minutes with small variations due to the tape slowly decaying. This creates a special atmosphere I am going to describe. 

The piece starts off directly with the main loop as well as some background noises that sound like something is happening quite far away. The loop sounds very harmonic which creates a calm and relaxing atmosphere. It reminds me of music people would use for meditation. Even though the loop itself is not that long (around ten seconds) I enjoyed listening to it; probably due to the meditation atmosphere it gave me. This also gave me positive vibes of peace and safety. In the background one can always hear some kind of crackling or noise which is not very present in the beginning of the piece and does not distract me. However, this changes as the piece goes on and the noises get stronger as well as more present.

When the noise frequencies got more intense and longer, the vibe of the whole piece changed. I experienced this soothing and relaxing atmosphere slowly decaying as the loop got progressively influenced by the decay. It began to sound weird; somehow “broken”. Tones started to break off and the noise got more prominent. However, at this point I still enjoyed listening to the piece since the calm atmosphere was still existing. As the decay was getting more visible, I was quite impressed how this could be presented through music. What also impressed me a lot is that this decay is completely natural and caused by Basinski playing the tape until it slowly decayed. I have never heard something like this before, but it was a really interesting experience to listen to a tape-recording decaying. This also felt kind of strange since I felt like I actually heard the music dying when the tape destroyed itself. This feeling influenced me a lot while I continued listening to the piece.

Even though the soothing atmosphere of the piece was maintained, my mood changed while I was listening. It still felt relaxing to me, but at the same time I started to feel sad and thoughtful. I started to think about the process of life and that everything comes to an end which also applies to the piece. This melancholic mood took over and I noticed myself getting lost in my thoughts which were mostly about different situations I have experienced in my life so far. When the piece comes to its end, the melody is barely recognizable anymore.

All in all, listening to “DP 3” was a really great experience for me because it made me think a lot. Generally, I had a good time listening to it, and I am quite impressed by Basinski’s idea. The fact that he was the only person ever hearing this tape live until it decayed also impressed me a lot. I am glad that he recorded the tape so that others can take part in this experience.