DISINTEGRATION LOOPS. During the summer of 2001, William Basinski (b.1958), an American composer, clarinetist, saxophonist, sound & video artist, attempted to salvage some of this earlier work, by re-recording it into a digital format. The tapes were old and as he played them they began to disintegrate. He looped and continued to document their slow death and in this way created a four-volume work entitled The disintegration Loops. There is something really touching about the sound of music dying. It is perhaps also because of how it dies...the gaps of silence get bigger and the listener keeps wondering which one is the last loop. You become afraid, afraid you’ll miss it, that it’s going to end and, by a drop in concentration, you won’t even notice.... While listening to the recording I took a breath every 10 minutes.
|