From abdullah424:
William Basinski - The Disintegration Loops Vol. 1
I'd never heard of this before. In case anyone else hasn't either, here's part of the description he sent me as well:
"It's impossible: no one could create a script this contrived. Yet, apparently, it happened. William Basinski's four-disk epic, The Disintegration Loops, was created out of tape loops Basinski made back in the early 1980s. These loops held some personal significance to Basinski, a significance he only touches on in the liner notes and we can only guess at. Originally, he just wanted to transfer the loops from analog reel-to-reel tape to digital hard disk. However, once he started the transfer, he discovered something: the tapes were old and were disintegrating as they played and he recorded them. As he notes in the liner notes, "The music was dying." But he kept recording, documenting the death of these loops."
So yeah, that's what this is. I only received the first session from abdullah, which is nothing more than a one-hour recording of the same 5-second classical sounding sample repeated over and over until the end. The looped sample "dies" as you listen to it over the course of sixty odd minutes and in the end, is little more than warbly static.
It's hard to sum up how the sound makes you feel after listening to it for so long. At points I felt like maybe a baby in a mothers womb might fit accurately. Another time during the listen I thought of floating away from the earth very slowly into outer space. I even thought it could be the soundtrack to a very slow death, or even just slowly dying over your lifetime if the tape were stretched out that long.
Interesting thought's, but at the same time listening to the full hour felt more like work to me than enjoyment. I'm proud to say I finished it, without skipping ahead once, though the temptation was very great.
Another element to this whole thing is introduced with a very strange story. Apparently Basinski and his friends listened to these on the roof of his NY apartment on 9/11...as they watched the towers burn and then finally crumble. They watched, "an old skyline fall and a new one begin." As they listened to the tapes die and be reborn.
Interesting...very interesting. That adds a whole nother element to the music. I can picture watching that happening live with this playing...would be beyond...well I can't even describe how that would feel really.
As I listened, I read around some reviews here and there. There were some negative accusations going on about how he simply linked his music to 9/11 in order to over-emotionalize the significance of what he had. After thinking that through...with the loop still playing...I think what he tried to present might be a little too perfect, and I decided he might have just linked them for those obvious reasons. I got a little angry about this, cause that would be f*cking lame, but I calmed down again. I mean...who really know if its true right? I don't. /shrug
In conclusion...I'm just really not sure what to think of all this. It's quite the journey abdullah, despite what it is...just a simple loop. This is not my kind of music at all. I think I'm glad I listened to it. I'm pretty sure I'll never listen to it again though. I think once was enough, but again, who knows.
If an acquaintance ever asked me if I'd heard this, I don't think I'd be able to say, "Yeah that's cool." or, "Yeah that sucks." I'd simply just say, "Yeah I'm aware of it."
I probably sound like an idiot with all this talk about not being able to make up my mind. It might sound like I don't enjoy challenging concepts, but that's not true. This is just...strange. :|
Anyway, thx for sending this, it was educational. I doubt I woulda had the guts to send this to someone else in a trade if I knew of it, so props.
