William Basinski

wow, i just discovered william basinski! you´ll love this if you like time hecker!

i have no idea how to set youtube links here. so take this:

yes, he's great

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhvdo-64Ah0

you need to use media tags btw, like so: [media>youtubelink[/media>

Ya, he makes nice things

Z-man!!!! He used to throw great parties back in the day.

  On 2/6/2010 at 10:19 PM, Masonic Boom said:

Z-man!!!! He used to throw great parties back in the day.

do tell more!

Found out about him when there was a fuss about Macquarie Ridge sounding like one of his tracks. Only have some of the Disintegration loops though, this one seems nice as well.

i loved the idea of disintegration loops and the music wasnt bad either but for some reason ive never felt the need to move beyond that. havent listed to it in a long time so maybe its time to give it another spin...

  On 2/7/2010 at 2:10 AM, Berk said:

  On 2/6/2010 at 10:19 PM, Masonic Boom said:

Z-man!!!! He used to throw great parties back in the day.

do tell more!

What, you want namedropping? Haha. Um, this was about 15 years ago or maybe more. The early 90s. I was doing session work with a band he was producing. He used to (maybe he still does? I have no idea, totally lost touch with that lot) live in a converted brewery/warehouse space in Williamsburg (this was before Williamsberg was all gentrified and was still kind of a decaying industrial area.) His partner was a sculptor who used to decorate the place with these amazing art exhibits - the whole place was like a gallery meets recording studio. Totally sumptuous over the top decor, velvet everywhere and freaky psychedelic blacklights.

He turned the whole house into a recording studio. You'd walk in the door, and the entrance hall had this kind of glass booth studio control centre on one side. And he'd use the whole building to record. He'd run out lines and have, like the drummer in the living room (massive ballroom of a place) and the singer in the bedroom lying on the four-poster bed and I'd be in the bathroom (because marble always gives the best reverb). I mean, this was warehouse space of a size you just don't get any more. The rooms would be the size of an entire factory floor.

He used to make us dress up in costumes while we were recording, have us wear masks and things. It was just completely over the top. I'm still not entirely sure what was real and if I hallucinated half of it - I used to curl up and read these Victorian science tomes while the band mixed. I think he took us to Dompseys Warehouse or somewhere and we bought all these ridiculous clothes and put them on to get us in the mood - I still have this velvet wizards robe that I did my sessions in.

The parties were just amazing. You'd walk in and it would be like a scene out of Beyond The Valley of the Dolls, seriously. Beautiful people everywhere draped all over the furniture. And up on this kind of dias were these beautiful girls in corsets playing cellos - who turned out to be Rasputina. And he'd swan through all this hedonism like a roman emperor.

He was just such a ... *magical* person you always knew that he was going to do something really amazing. Anyway, get the broom to clear the names off the floor. I'm done.

howd he get the money to do all that?

I was going to ask the same thing. I looked up his biography to see if he was a big player in some field or other but couldn't see any references to how he would've afforded such a thing (possibly inheritance ?)

Also, you have to remember that Williamsburg in the late 80s/early 90s was basically a wasteland. Artists went there because it was CHEAP as hell. The skyrocketing rents were a thing of the 00s. Warehouse space was a lot more affordable back then.

  On 2/8/2010 at 8:32 AM, Z_B_Z said:

i loved the idea of disintegration loops and the music wasnt bad either but for some reason ive never felt the need to move beyond that. havent listed to it in a long time so maybe its time to give it another spin...

i like most of his other releases much more than the disintergration loops

  On 2/8/2010 at 11:58 AM, Masonic Boom said:

  On 2/7/2010 at 2:10 AM, Berk said:

  On 2/6/2010 at 10:19 PM, Masonic Boom said:

Z-man!!!! He used to throw great parties back in the day.

do tell more!

 

What, you want namedropping? Haha. Um, this was about 15 years ago or maybe more. The early 90s. I was doing session work with a band he was producing. He used to (maybe he still does? I have no idea, totally lost touch with that lot) live in a converted brewery/warehouse space in Williamsburg (this was before Williamsberg was all gentrified and was still kind of a decaying industrial area.) His partner was a sculptor who used to decorate the place with these amazing art exhibits - the whole place was like a gallery meets recording studio. Totally sumptuous over the top decor, velvet everywhere and freaky psychedelic blacklights.

 

He turned the whole house into a recording studio. You'd walk in the door, and the entrance hall had this kind of glass booth studio control centre on one side. And he'd use the whole building to record. He'd run out lines and have, like the drummer in the living room (massive ballroom of a place) and the singer in the bedroom lying on the four-poster bed and I'd be in the bathroom (because marble always gives the best reverb). I mean, this was warehouse space of a size you just don't get any more. The rooms would be the size of an entire factory floor.

 

He used to make us dress up in costumes while we were recording, have us wear masks and things. It was just completely over the top. I'm still not entirely sure what was real and if I hallucinated half of it - I used to curl up and read these Victorian science tomes while the band mixed. I think he took us to Dompseys Warehouse or somewhere and we bought all these ridiculous clothes and put them on to get us in the mood - I still have this velvet wizards robe that I did my sessions in.

 

The parties were just amazing. You'd walk in and it would be like a scene out of Beyond The Valley of the Dolls, seriously. Beautiful people everywhere draped all over the furniture. And up on this kind of dias were these beautiful girls in corsets playing cellos - who turned out to be Rasputina. And he'd swan through all this hedonism like a roman emperor.

 

He was just such a ... *magical* person you always knew that he was going to do something really amazing. Anyway, get the broom to clear the names off the floor. I'm done.

you're talking about this right?

http://www.mmlxii.com/arcadia/arcadia.html

he sold it because of financial problems

from his myspace:

  Quote

I AM LIQUIDATING ARCADIA IN W’BURG, NY

If you want to have a piece of the legendary arcadia in williamsburg, let me know and I will let you know when the sale is....tons of gorgeous furniture, housewares, lamps, vintage recording equipment, weird goth stuff, you name it, i have it and i have to get rid of it. I just can't float NY anymore, so come and buy a piece of Williamsburg history..long gone....and I can downsize to my little rented bungalow in sunny california. the phone number on the photo no longer is answered or voicemail checked..can't remember the code....so, don't bother trying to call that numero. lol, wb

  On 2/8/2010 at 1:43 PM, thief said:

  On 2/8/2010 at 8:32 AM, Z_B_Z said:

i loved the idea of disintegration loops and the music wasnt bad either but for some reason ive never felt the need to move beyond that. havent listed to it in a long time so maybe its time to give it another spin...

 

i like most of his other releases much more than the disintergration loops

whats your favorite release by him?

I really love the concept of Basinski's long form pieces but for some reason they've never completely grabbed me. I feel that the loops need a little more variation either by having loops that are much longer in length or by having slightly more degradation or more of dynamic change throughout. dlp 4 (Track one of Disintegration Loops 3) is ideally what I'd love his tracks to sound like - Starting with a coherent loop but by the end is little more than a crackly mess fighting against the tape heads.

The album 92982 also seems to strike a balance between having just the loop but with enough variety to span the ~15 minutes per track without it getting repetitive, whereas Vivian & Ondine seems overlong to me with only one real audible change about half way in.

Don't get me wrong the disintegration loops series has some real lovely loops in it (dlp5 from no.3 and dlp 6 from no.4 are breathtaking) but I'd really like the track to evolve somewhat more (even just a likkle bit more ...)

I love this guy. El camino real is probably my favorite work by him. I love listening to it loud with all the lights out, it's like floating in space. I think it's a good a place to start listening to him as well.

i like the GArden of Brokeness a lot. also, The River. but the Dis loops are probably the best for me

I like listening to the disintegration loops while going on a long walk

seems like you should be recommending tim hecker to the basinski fans

"Silent Night" sets a nice mood for summer evenings. Well rec'd