William Basinski‘s 2026 work Passing the Cup of Sorrows was inspired by a spiritual hypnotherapy exercise involving an exchange of energy between two souls in the spirit world, in which one spirit comes to understand and forgive someone who hurt them in a past life. Moved by online testimonials of this practice, Basinski attempted to interpret this transformation process through music. The 38-minute piece consists of intimately recorded solo piano, with background noises audible at certain points, along with sparse electronic effects. Basinski typically plays a short melodic pattern and lets the notes decay, patiently waiting before playing again. Notes that have already been played sporadically flash back during the in-between spaces and still…
Tag Archive: William Basinski
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…newly remastered by Josh Bonati and includes the entire five-hour suite that Basinski originally captured while looping analog tape as it actively deteriorated in the process.
A work of minimal, process-based tape music, experimental composer William Basinski‘s Disintegration Loops series achieves astonishingly moving and evocative states through relatively simplistic means. In the process of transferring aging reel-to-reel tape loops to a digital medium, Basinski found the reels (originally recorded in 1982) were so old and decrepit that the tape would shed slightly with each pass of the loop. This gradually affected the sound coming through, blurring the short, pastoral phrases of sound into an increasingly ghostly and…
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