Released: 2002/2003
Label: Temporary Residence Ltd.
Genre: Minimalism
It wasn’t until the summer of 2001 that Basinski stumbled into the work that brought him out of obscurity. He had decided to start transferring the loops he’d made in the early eighties to CDs, for posterity. Some of the tapes were in terrible shape, and as Basinski let the loops play they fell apart. Magnetic tape stores information on bits of metal affixed to a ribbon. That metal is the music, and the music was crumbling. Basinski copied as many loops as he could, capitalizing on the changes happening to the sounds as the tapes turned into dust.
On September 11, 2001, Basinski had a job interview with the arts organization Creative Time at the World Trade Center. But from his roof he could see a huge cloud of smoke drifting into Brooklyn from lower Manhattan. Downstairs, he played music as loud as he could, until the “disintegration loops” started. He returned to the roof and began videotaping the clouds of debris at Ground Zero as night fell. When he synched the visual with the disintegration loops, something clicked. The New Yorker
The Moderns 
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