#d|p 1.1

11 September 2014

d|p 1.1 - William Basinski

This is the first track of composer William Basinski's infamous The Disintegration Loops. Basinski tried to digitize some musical loops he recorded in the 1980's that were on magnetic tape, but found that the tape was so old that it deteriorated as it went through the copying process. The result was one, several-second long loop of music, slowly falling apart and becoming more distorted over an hour-long period.

Basinski finished the project shortly before September 11, 2001. During the last hour of sunlight on that day, he and his neighbors went up to the top of their apartment building to watch the smoke billow from the destroyed World Trade Center towers, and Basinski recorded the skyline. The next day, he listened to the first of The Disintegration Loops as he watched the footage.

I may be emotional today, but this stunning orchestration of the loop that I grew so fond of brought me to tears tonight.

And it's almost nothing like how it started.

Writing my outline.

This song is so much more incredible than I can ever imagine. If you need an hour of ambience, put this on.