Customer Reviews

The Disintegration Loops I

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4 star:		(2)
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1 star:		(1)

 

 

William Basinski is a pioneer of ambient electronic music whose work goes back at least to the early 1980s, carrying the torch of an earlier generation of audio explorers whose primary tools were tape machines, feedback generators, and the like. His approach towards recording produces aural landscapes that are as alluring as they are austere. His most ambitious project thus far,The Disintegration Loops, is a 4 CD, 5 hour work dedicated to the victims of the 09/11/2001 terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, is great enough not just in terms of its length but also scope, and solidifies Basinski's place in the pantheon of outstanding ambient/minimalist artists and composers.

The title of this review is the best way I can find to describe what this highly unusual music sounds like. Much has been said by previous writers as to the process by which these recordings were created, very few however have expressed the impact these loops have on the psyche while listening to them. Pastoral memories of childhood (dlp 1.1), slowly giving way to what sounds like static transmissions from another galaxy (dlp 2.2), with each piece becoming increasingly retrospective. The effect is hypnotic to be sure but also challenging, to listen to a 15-20 second loop being repeated for as long as one hour will be a test for many. But the manner in which each sonic landscape crumbles into nothingness is what makes each of these recordings so fascinating and hence lies its appeal. If you are turned off by minimalism, stay away from this, for it is minimalism in the extreme. But for everyone else, this is the best work of this type of music to be released so far this decade.

Postscript: This will also go well with your Oval and Bernard Gunter CDs.

This is truly a beautiful recording.As i understand, it was made 20 years ago, forgotten, and when re-discovered by the Mr.Basinski, it was literally falling apart. As he transfered it to a new medium, the tape disintegrated and it's perfect. The sound is like a more ghostly Brian Eno ambient release. It loops in and through itself and gradually falls apart as you listen. A special kind of Magickal music that reflects the passage of time like few pieces of art ever have.

While Stephen Dranger's review is a fair literal interpretation of the physical characteristics of this music, (except that I would defy him to create anything this organic and beautiful in ten years with his computer, much less in 15 minutes), he obviously lacks any imagination whatsoever: the crucial ingredient in enjoying any music.

Also these snippets are not of "classical music" but of simple synth music Basinski created over twenty years ago.

Also, the linking of the project to 9/11 is hardly arbitrary or a ploy to emotionalize it. Basinski lives less than a mile from the Twin Towers and was creating the Disintegration Loops as they fell. He and his friends listened to these loops disintegrate on his rooftop through those strange, smoke filled days when it seemed the world was ending. But this music would be profoundly sorrowful without the connotation.

The disintegration loops can not be classified as any kind of traditonal music. The entire series is ENTIRELY to long, and it can be almost a chore to listen too. The music is simple, if not paying attention too it, and when your ears are focused on the music you become overwhelmed with detail. I'm sure any one who has looked into William Basinski, and knows the entire backround behind the music. Music that exist in physical form no longer exist, on through the disintegration process that we here today. Music was finished during the process of 9/11 and so forth. Knowing all these things and the tasks given when listing to the album seems almost....not worth it.

Wrong

This album to me is the most important piece of ambient art ever created. The music is arranged perfecty, there is no other way to explain it, you just have to listen to it. The length of the songs are long but in the process of listening to the music I felt really no sense of time when thrown myself into it. Its the death of music happening right in front of you and your just watching it fade away. Its very hard to try and explain the realy feelings that come along with this album. And if your a person that enjoys the true meaning of music and understanding the process of making something like this, you know that coincidence and time where the soul factors that molded this beautiful music. I would like to explain more and more about the album but there really isnt much i can say that hasn't been said, just knowing that this music can move people into so many diffrent ways to make them write and express there feelings for this album is enough.

As far as ambient music goes this is perfect

"The Disintegration Loops I-IV"
William Basinski

8.5 stars /10

Music, whether in the form of raw noise or more structured composition, has one universal characteristic--it is created. Born through technological, human, or natural means, sound is assembled from different frequencies and timbres, interwoven with rhythms and production, and laid on top of silence. Even a rest, pause, "fade out," or decrescendo are intentional sorts of musical creation in which something is created from nothing. Rarely is it the case that sound appears to dissolve on its own accord--more specifically, something collapsing into nothing.
On a quiet morning in 2001, the avant-garde sound artist William Basinski inadvertently composed such a piece on the roof of his Brooklyn apartment. He had planned to spend the day converting some 20 year-old tape loops into digital recording, but as he began playing the tapes, he found that the magnetic tape began to actually disintegrate. As the loops were playing, layers of iron oxide would crumble off of the tape and the sound would become more fragmented upon the next repetition. He called each of the tracks "Dip" and these were further divided into a four-volume album under the title "The Disintegration Loops." While a few of the loops are relatively short, two of the most compelling tracks, Dip4 and Dip3, clock in at 52 and 41 minutes in duration.
The piece, most of which consists of ambient piano and string melodies, are loops from what was originally intended to be nothing more than mere concept samples. However, the loops themselves are not necessarily meant to capture the listener, rather it is their presentation and repetition that gives them their artistic value. Even with their excessive length and repetition, the loops never bore the listener; each track actually seems to grow progressively more beautiful. The listener begins to sense something epic in the mood that the sounds evoke; an appreciation that seems to sink deeper into his subconscious as the melodies steadily persist. But just as one is lulled further toward this splendor, the forces of nature begin to fragment the riffs until they eventually decompose into complete silence. As itunes writes, "it is the true sound of deconstruction, the slow and relentless death of beauty over time." As this decay commences, the listener begins to experience a unique and terrifyingly real sense of loss. There is even a reaction of fear; perhaps because the source of the disintegration is so natural, causing the phenomena to feel as though it were being controlled by something almost God-like. The music is no longer in the hands of a composer, a human being, a machine, or even luck--it is as though the sounds were meant to disappear.
Coincidentally, on the morning that Basinski was creating these loops, it was September 11th, 2001. Hours later, he and his friends would watch as the World Trade Center towers collapsed to the ground a few blocks away. They stayed and listened to these tapes preach the apocalypse throughout the day; the smoke would rise and the world seemed to fall. Basinski had unintentionally stumbled upon what would become a requiem for a tragedy. But it was also the birth of the first music of its kind-- one that could capture, at least more realistically than ever before, the experience of death through the medium of sound itself.

The story behind The Disintegration Loops gives the music its meaning and also sets it up as a gift rather than a proposition. Basinski was in the process of archiving, rather than composing, when he discovered that the tapes were disintegrating. The music in the loops had already been composed. Basinski could not have created the effect of decay, as it happened, himself - and so the music is a memorial and a conceptual element. Therefore, the music needs to be understood not as music, as a simple loop with an effect or two added, but as something a little more complex. The ideas are not complicated, but they are perfect. The music and its texture is precisely calibrated (accidentally and purposefully at once) to bring these ideas to the fore. Creation does not have a minimum time or complexity requirement: it can occur in seconds out of a single note.

William Basinski is an avant-garde musician - which basically translates to "William Basinski is an artist who is easily impressed by very simple and obvious ideas, and who has zero musical talent but a lot of talent in talking about it." These are basically snippets of classical music that he has looped for 40 minutes, because they "disintegrate" -- and by "disintegrate," I mean it sounds like a cell phone going out of range, rather than any cool effect you might be expecting. The only thing Basinski has really added is a huge, cheesy canyon reverb over the whole thing and a pathetic attempt at justifying it, which unfortunately many people have bought into. He even attempted to link the project to 9/11 in order to over-emotionalize his music. In short, this is not really so much bad as insulting.

The music is soothing, yes, but it is very simple to recreate this CD yourself with actual music and a computer audio editor, and in about 15 minutes, too. Save yourself the time and $20.