William Basinski

Born in Houston, Texas, in 1958 and based in Los Angeles, William Basinski has been developing a body of work at the intersection of experimental music, ambient, drone, minimalism and process music since the late 1970s. Trained in clarinet, jazz saxophone and composition at the University of North Texas, he began working early on with tape loops, delays and recycled sound material, building a musical language of slow repetitions, gradual erosion and suspended melodic layers. A significant portion of his catalogue comes from recordings made in the 1980s and released later, including Shortwavemusic, recorded in 1982 and released in 1998, and The River, recorded in 1983 and released in 2002. His name remains closely associated with The Disintegration Loops, a cycle released between 2002 and 2003, created from old tapes that disintegrate as they are digitised, giving the composition its form and substance. Basinski subsequently continued this exploration of memory, duration and the transformation of sound with albums such as Melancholia in 2003, Nocturnes in 2013, Cascade and The Deluge in 2015, A Shadow in Time in 2017, On Time Out of Time in 2019, Lamentations in 2020 and September 23rd in 2024. He has also collaborated with Richard Chartier, Lawrence English and Janek Schaefer, while maintaining his ties to the international ambient, sound art and experimental music scenes.