About
William Basinski
William Basinski (b.1958) is a classically trained musician and composer who has been working in experimental media for nearly five decades in NYC and California. Employing obsolete technology and analogue tape loops, his haunting and melancholy soundscapes explore the temporal nature of life and resound with the reverberations of memory and the mystery of time. His epic 4-disc masterwork, The Disintegration Loops received international critical acclaim and was chosen as one of the top 50 albums of 2004 by Pitchfork Media. The Temporary Residence deluxe LP box-set reissue from 2012 was awarded best re-issue of the year and a score of 10 on Pitchfork.
Orchestral transcriptions of The Disintegration Loops by Maxim Moston have been performed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art (NYC), Queen Elizabeth Hall (London) and La Batie Festival (Geneva, Switzerland), Dark Mofo Festival (Hobart, Tasmania), the Pitchfork Midwinter Festival (Chicago) with the Chicago Philharmonic, the Barbican Centre (London) with the London Contemporary Orchestra, and most recently at Le Lieu Unique (Nantes, France) with Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire.
Installations and films made in collaboration with artist-filmmaker, James Elaine have been presented in festivals and museums internationally, and his concerts are presented to sold out crowds around the world. Basinski was chosen by Music Director, Anohni to create music for the Robert Wilson opera, The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic which had its world premiere at the Manchester International Festival in July 2011 and toured Europe in 2012 and North America in 2013.
Since 2020, Basinski's jazzy project SPARKLE DIVISION with Preston Wendel and Gary Thomas Wright and special guests such as the late Henry Grimes, has releaased two albums To Feel Embraced and Foxy and several singles on Temporary Residence Ltd.
Basinski’s solo work, Lamentations was released in 2020 and his collaborative album . . . on reflection with British sound artist Janek Schaefer in 2022, both on Temporary Residence Ltd. Also in 2022, a cover version of David Bowie’s ‘Subterraneans’ with Alva Noto and Martin L. Gore of Depeche Mode was released on Noton, Germany. In 2023, his unearthed early work The Clocktower at the Beach (1979) was released on Richard Chartier's label LINE and as of November 22, 2024 a new collaboration with Richard Chartier, Aurora Terminalis, also announced on LINE.
2024 marked the beginning of a new series of archival releases—Arcadia Archive—on Temporary Residence Ltd. starting with the 1982 recording titled September 23rd.
Basinski continues to tour the world with his live performances.
Booking North America:
World:
