William Basinski - Hymns Of Oblivion

  On 12/31/2010 at 3:37 AM, Mellow U said:

 

He's relentlessly recording loads of material to failing hard drives that we will have the technology to retrieve in a lossy format in twenty years.

 

:lol: :lol:

does william basinski really need a good cover?

his music kinda speaks for itself..

  On 1/1/2011 at 12:47 AM, fiznuthian said:

does william basinski really need a good cover?

his music kinda speaks for itself..

Putting effort into artwork is never a bad thing. But if that cover (assuming it even is the real cover) depicts the music in his opinion, there's not much to do except to take the beating. Even though it's all subjective I'm pretty sure most people think it's outright horrible. Edited January 1, 2011 by 40days

  On 12/29/2010 at 11:33 AM, triachus said:

i'm guessing that's a Basinski performance from the 80's or at most early 90's

 

 

those were different times, when lots of things were acceptable

 

 

 

 

i'm not really into that faux glamrock style of singing, but i'm surprised to hear the sax (and I just noticed the saxophone earring in that picture)

 

 

still curious to hear the album

 

 

I know I saw a youtube clip of him looking all glam-80s doing this ambient saxaphone thing, when it really was the 1980s. It sounded pretty good. I think this cover is not a joke. but i also think this will be up to his usual high quality.

Yeah, obviously an 80s performance, but god damn, that is horrendous. I was honestly shocked when I saw it, but when the sax came out, it was game over for me.

 

Then I saw the cover artwork.

 

Please William, think of the children.

  On 1/2/2011 at 1:25 AM, brisk said:

Yeah, obviously an 80s performance, but god damn, that is horrendous. I was honestly shocked when I saw it, but when the sax came out, it was game over for me.

 

Then I saw the cover artwork.

 

Please William, think of the children.

 

 

oh dang, didnt listen to the clip...well, you could always use it to irritate metalheads/rappers/deadheads/etc.

pretty fucked.

maybe his music is finally starting to sound the way he's always looked

He doesn't look anything like that now.

He is peforming it live on Feb 18th @ Teatro Astra, Torino, Piemonte, Italy.

 

From what I gather, it's something he worked on in the 80s and the 90s, so it'll be interesting to see how it has developed at least. That video and cover are hopefully in jest, because if he does actually release them like that, his fanbase is going to E-X-P-L-O-D-E.

 

I love his music a lot, but I did not sign up for this.

Just curious but what's everyone's favourite album?

 

Mine would be 'El Camino Real'.

I think my favourite would be either 92982 or The River - both are so visual. The former I imagine being in some rather grubby flat in New York at the peak of the Summer and I'm hungover and have the window open so I've got this mixture of the breeze of outside and the hot flat and listening to a mixture of what's going on outside and some ambient loveliness. The latter I imagine looking out of some inner city apartment building in late Autumn in the middle of the night and it's pouring with rain, I'm completely alone in the world and just looking out at the occasional car going past and it seems like an event going on seemingly forever.

 

..... but then I'm a little odd like that

  On 1/2/2011 at 4:36 PM, mcbpete said:

I think my favourite would be either 92982 or The River - both are so visual. The former I imagine being in some rather grubby flat in New York at the peak of the Summer and I'm hungover and have the window open so I've got this mixture of the breeze of outside and the hot flat and listening to a mixture of what's going on outside and some ambient loveliness. The latter I imagine looking out of some inner city apartment building in late Autumn in the middle of the night and it's pouring with rain, I'm completely alone in the world and just looking out at the occasional car going past and it seems like an event going on seemingly forever.

 

..... but then I'm a little odd like that

 

Good description. I also like The River but it always makes me feel uncomfortable. For me, its got a kind of creepy, decaying vibe to it. It's like listening to something that was once fresh and vibrant but now its just a piece of someone's history.

I always feel depressed after listening to it. Cannot explain why.

Edited January 2, 2011 by fumi

No you're right it really is quite a depressing listen. Though sometimes if I'm feeling particularly down the album just hits the spot. I'll tell you exactly what it reminds me actually - Silent Hill 4: The Room, when you look out of the flat and the world is just going by and you're completely isolated from it all. That, but if it was raining and at night.

  On 1/2/2011 at 4:50 AM, fumi said:

He doesn't look anything like that now.

 

 

i think he was one of the first examples when we made a thread about the disparity between what an artist looks like and what their music sounds like.

  On 1/2/2011 at 8:45 PM, mcbpete said:

No you're right it really is quite a depressing listen. Though sometimes if I'm feeling particularly down the album just hits the spot. I'll tell you exactly what it reminds me actually - Silent Hill 4: The Room, when you look out of the flat and the world is just going by and you're completely isolated from it all. That, but if it was raining and at night.

 

yeah, I really don't like The River. Except of course I Do. It's just an ordeal to listen to it.

It carries with it a heavy freight of message that, as I get older, I am reluctantly having to deal with.

I think Melancholia and the Garden of Brokenness are his best works. I really dig is piano loops, Vivian & Ondine, El Camino Real and Shortwavemusic probably come after them. I never really got into Disintegration Loops: they're okay but I never really find any reason to listen to them with all the other stuff available.

Edited January 3, 2011 by 40days

  On 1/2/2011 at 10:49 PM, remy marathe said:

  On 1/2/2011 at 4:50 AM, fumi said:

He doesn't look anything like that now.

 

 

i think he was one of the first examples when we made a thread about the disparity between what an artist looks like and what their music sounds like.

 

Oh my LOL. He looks like Tony Bourdain's grandpa who has had "trouble letting go" to his glitter boots glam days ever since "the accident"...

El Camino Real is also my favourite. Possibly because it reminds me the most of what the concert of his I went to was like.

I wonder if this will ever get released?

 

 

I fucking give up. Shouldn't be this difficult to embed a video.

Edited January 12, 2011 by mcbpete
It isn't, just stick the youtube URL inside [youtube]......[/youtube] tags

I hope he does release it, it sounds lovely

I always wondered... is Baskinski just a schtick? I mean, if you forget the quality of his releases, does he really have a stack of old recording or it's just a way to create a personna / differenciate himself from the stack of other people doing ambiant?

  On 1/13/2011 at 12:42 AM, Philip Glass said:

I always wondered... is Baskinski just a schtick? I mean, if you forget the quality of his releases, does he really have a stack of old recording or it's just a way to create a personna / differenciate himself from the stack of other people doing ambiant?

 

This falls squarely in line with my musical "pie graph test". Simply ask yourself if the music meets these three criteria:

 

• Does this music sound good to me? Do I enjoy it in any capacity?
  
• How does the packaging size up? Was it too expensive or perhaps not nearly nice enough? Is the physical format of this music important to me?
  
• How much of this music is reliant on a gimmick? If you take away the 'mystique' of the music, is it something I am likely to purchase/listen to again?
  

 

For my personal taste, Basinksi's work falls into the category of "I think the music is okay, decent, but as a whole it is nearly pointless without all of the gimmicky concepts attached to it." Which means I have never got as far as the physical realm with his music. Why I'm posting this in a Basinski-loving thread, I don't know. I guess considering the man's acclaim up to this point I keep gravitating toward his newer releases in search of something worthy of the praise, though (personally) I have yet to find that.

I love most of I have heard of him but dear god that cover is fucking retarded. If I were to see that without any idea who he is I would think it was the most horrible local prog butt rock band flier I had ever seen.

  On 1/12/2011 at 12:07 PM, fumi said:

I wonder if this will ever get released?

 

 

I fucking give up. Shouldn't be this difficult to embed a video.

 

Thanks.