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William Basinski’s “The Disintegration Loops” (2002)

 

Not only the context of this piece but also the piece itself is truly haunting. The cover of this album is a view from Basinki’s roof of his apartment complex, hours after the World Trade Center collapsed on the day of the September 11th attacks. He was finishing this record just that morning in his apartments with his friends. The feelings they must have felt are unimaginable. This track would have been as eerie as well as beautiful without the tragic background story; however, it kind of adds and connects further emotions to the record.

            When I try to shield the piece from its context, it feels like I am left with an auditory version of memories. It creates the perfect atmosphere in order to be able to focus on someone’s own life and what he or she has experienced. You might feel nostalgia for your past but I personally feel more a wave of concern for the future – my own future but more so mother earth’s. Nevertheless, listening to this piece feels unreal and it manages to shortly cut me off from reality. For me, it demonstrates the construction of life because if we constructed it so, it is able to be changed. Basinski’s “The Desintegration Loops” really accomplishes to pull me out of my own reality and puts me into loops of thinking and making promises to my own self. That is why, despite its terrible context, I think I am able connect some positive emotions to at least the momentum of change it gives me (which obviously cannot be put into the context of 9/11).

            Allowing myself to be aware of the context, the “disintegration” part of the piece is perceptible and emphasized on two levels. Firstly, it is obvious on the metaphorical dimension.  Secondly, the distortions and faults hearable are not artificial and therefore add immensely to character of the record. It is fact that in this piece we are able to listen to an actual tape physically withering away which creates the entire novelty.

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