Maria Alighourchi
7489718
The Future of American Music
Listening Report 6
William Basinski
D P 3
The “Disintegration Loop
“1.3 by William Basinksi, a recorded piece of music gathered and clustered
together through old, decaying tapes which ultimately is molded into a utterly
new melody, is over 41 minutes long. The sounds evoke a melancholic and
somewhat sad atmosphere. At the end of each looped segment, an uplifting chord
is played. This uplifting chord implies to believe that there is reason for
hope to escape the sadness and melancholy created by the beginning of the
melody, only to hear the segment start all over again. Consequently establishing
a fairly triste tone and creates the feeling of being stuck in place, like
reliving a traumatic situation, in which, at the end, there was hope, only to
begin all over again.
The looping, and seemingly
never ending melody carries a sense of endlessness. Being one of the longest
loops containing the shortest amount of
music, I have ever heard, contributing to the feeling of endlessness. This loop
conveys the same feeling with witch it was brought to life – through withering,
faltering tapes I experience a the strange sensation of defeat. More so, a sense of a defeat incoming. The defeat will
never occur because there is no relaxation of the final climax. The beginning
of the end. I imagine to witness a falling battlefield, one after the other is smelling
the sweet release of death while slowly descending down. The loop sounds agonizingly
slow, altering every death into something even worse. Witnessing the ending of
something, of an era, of a war or of a life is a dreadful thought, but having
it in mind it leaves as agonizingly slowly as it came, leaving a mark. This
mark will later turn into a not quite so visible scar. This molded piece of
decaying madness conveys ultimately that exact mark. Listening to it for 40
minutes and then again while writing every inch of it down, embroidered a mark.
Later, somewhere, sometime, I will hear a similar sound and this mark will then
be a scar of a falling battlefield remembered and witnessed.
Simultaneously, upon my
second listening, just now, the melted, clump of decaying tapes transmit the
image of a battle long lost, of me stumbling over a massive pond of corpses,
never witnessing the battle or the reason itself but the dreading, endless
sense of pure defeat. Now it is finally there, like the second act of a play.
Towards the end of the composed
piece, it starts to falter, to damp to loose it’s once found life, it’s energy.
Considering the evenly damping tapes, a real ending of a music piece is found,
defining this piece as not an utter loop by itself but a unique composition, with
a clear beginning, middle and end. Thus, it could also be regarded as a story
in itself - a splinter of history.
Comments
Post a Comment