William Basinski is a pretty important composer to my enjoyment of ambient and lowercase music. His Disintegration Loops was to me what Music for Airports was to many others. It opened me up to a whole new style of music and its sense of soundplay, minimalism and functionality were all very intriguing. In the past few years, I feel like Basinski has been more prolific than ever, putting out a handful of studio efforts and collaborations that have all been well received. However, I felt as though patterns were beginning to emerge. There are only so many times that a sample of a dusty piano loop repeated ad infinitum and subtly mutating over time will captivate me, so for this album, I really hoped I would hear more. And I definitely did. For clarity, I listened to the CD mix, and have not hear the exclusive vinyl mixes.
The title track, which allegedly contains recordings of an ancient merging of black holes (which I really want to hear the original source just to see what it sounds like), is an eerie and also tranquil journey through the universe. The composition starts out as a very spacey drone, almost a mix between a crystal glass and a Tibetan singing bowl, with bass frequencies echoing like Timpani behind. Eerie tones and tape hiss weave in and out as the sounds slowly progress the song. Otherworldly tones are held out for long stretches of time, and create unsettling and alien dissonance when they overlap, heightening the tension as the composition reaches the midpoint. Darker tones and lower frequencies are introduced, and the song becomes very engrossing, the listener lost in a haze of intersecting ghostly tones that I can only aliken to space age whale songs (which is interesting, since Basinski actually contributed to a collaborative project sampling whale songs a few years ago). The dissonances begin to resolve and become harmonious near the conclusion, ending the track in a loop that sounds like waves washing ashore, or maybe glass softly blowing across sand in the wind.
The second and much briefer track, '4(E+D)4(ER=EPR)', is a little bit more reminiscent of Basinski's earlier work, characterized by high pitched frequencies resting atop a bed of keyboard washes and drones. It relies a little bit more on repeating phrases, with the timbre and tone glacially changing with each repetition. These tones also interweave and create a lot of interesting soundplay that can be both meditative and disorienting, depending on the depth to which you are listening.
I feel like the risks that William Basinski took on this project definitely paid off, and that it definitely stands out from his other projects. That being said, this is still an ambient project, so don't expect a lot of bombast going in. If you're looking for some interesting mood music, or you're getting tired of lo-fi hip hop beats Youtube channels and want something else to study to, I think this might be your thing. It's relaxing enough to blend into the background, yet interesting enough to actively listen to, which is the whole point, if you're asking Brian Eno. And while you're asking, ask him to lower the price on Oblique Strategies cards. I want a deck, but not that badly.
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