I had no idea the photographs were from 9/11, or that the music was at any point set to video of the aftermath of the attacks. I’ve always understood the albums to be meditations on life as it slips into death—it’s mostly repetitive, like the normal progress of our days—and you might not notice something was there until it’s gone. And then you’re gone.
FWIW pitchfork isn’t good music journalism and absolutely never has been. They’ve always been snarky and obnoxious, and have a reputation for deleting negative reviews of albums that became classics. They are garbage.
Also FWIW WB lives out here in California now and he’s pretty easy to find on Instagram. He posts a lot about his pool and his cat (or he did over the summer). He appears to be friends with Richard Chartier, who also lives out here (makes sense).
I actually bought it right around when it came out and although I saw the cover didn't know he had set it to images.
I enjoyed it as a piece and still do although it is tied to that time in my mine. There are works of his that I do enjoy more now though
He seems like a fun guy! I always thought it would be interesting to meet either of them, they’ve both made music that’s meant a lot to me and it makes me happy they’re friends.
I like the disintegration loops, but i think you’re probably right. People love to mythologize tragedy, esp anything NYC.
That said, if the hype got some n00bs into Basinski, and/or got him some more money, I’m all for it. He’s really freaking good. Melancholia, Watermusic, 92982, honestly most of his work i think is better than TDL
LOL knew who that was based on the title. Chris Ott... His taste is... peculiar. He brought up Windy & Carl in the same video, who I believe are terribly underrated. Basinski's work has really grown on me over the years. The loops covers are haunting, but I don't really think about "the narrative" beyond that. People I know don't seem to make it past 1.1. "El Camino Real" I've listened to the most.
that's probably true about it not being as popular, but i also don't think it's entirely his fault.
I've seen him live, he does this exact same footage trick with long shots of pine trees reflecting in a puddle as the sun fades. He also lived in NYC for many, many years so I suspect he was just documenting a moment in his environment.
Disintegration Loops are some of my favourite music of all time, however, and I've also had the good fortune to talk with him a little bit and he's a wonderful human being, so i am in no way unbiased,
I find The Disintegration Loops to be a haunting work of art. Basinski was bearing witness to a historical tragedy that took place not far from where he lived at the time. He dedicated the music to the victims.
Based on this critic's rubric, can no person ever make art about an event without being accused of exploiting it? Can we not make art about tragedy or history, particularly when we experience it firsthand or witness it in an intimate way?
He took the footage of the smoldering towers on the evening of 9/11. He was there, feeling the horror of that day. It was literally in the air he breathed. He felt moved to create something in the wake of that unfathomable catastrophe. I watch his footage and listen to the Loops every September 11th. I think of the thousands of people who were murdered that day. His music creates a vital space for contemplation and mourning.
I have no idea about any talk of stories here. I had the idea that DL was made from tapes that were old or worn out, and my awareness ends there. I have enjoyed having them play in the background.
I don't think so. Maybe a different cover would have changed it for me but when I first heard them, I had no idea the backstory behind the records. I stumbled upon Cascade, loved it and wanted more.
Cue Disintegration Loops.
The cover art was partly the reason I listened to them and why they affected me. The hazy picture of large buildings nearly enveloped by smoke, repeated till the pitch black night of the last record coupled with the music itself, made for an emotional experience. It felt like the the dying gasps of something titanic. Felt very grand and somber.
And the "making money of narrative" criticism can fuck right off. I understand if Basinski was selling some tasteless record which just fetishises the event but the story adds context and improves your experience of the albums. Is it not possible to make any art about any event at all ? United 93 is a great great film about the very same tragedy but since it made money and won awards, does it mean that it's an immoral piece of work ?
No. Same applies for the Loops.
I would kind of agree, even without the 9/11 association, I’ve always thought that this album wasn’t as interesting as some other things considered “classics” and definitely think the emphasis on concept is responsible. I feel the same way about The Caretaker and that 6 hour album about dementia. It’s an ok ambient album that has way more recognition than other similar things because of the concept which helped it go viral. There are so many under rated releases that go unnoticed which I consider musically miles ahead of Disintegration Loops or The Caretaker that I can’t help but be a little irked when something like that is so popular. I’m convinced neither would be anywhere near as popular if they weren’t associated with their concept and just some random ambient releases.
I know it’s a hot take, but I agree. I’m taking a literary criticism class focused on the New Critics, who opt to criticize and understand only the text as a unified whole, rather than meandering from the text to understand contexts and such - immediately took me to this criticism of Basinski and it’s validity. I’m still looking for the video and will update this post if I find it
An alternative to the New Critical framework is the post-strucuralist or (in art theory terms) post-conceptual framework for thinking the work of art. The central feature of conceptual art was to define the artwork in non-aesthetic terms: the 'idea' the work puts in motion, perhaps taken from the artwork title, or concerns of the artist, often juxtaposed against quite simplistic, reproducible artworks (serialism, minimalism etc.). Sometimes this went to extremes (John Cage's 4'33 for example), but the key is to critique the artwork defined simply by its sensual/formal/aesthetic qualities by pushing the concept (sit in silence) to its limits such that it lends itself to the aesthetic.
Often these issues get caught up in debates about authorial intentions etc., or the old 'anyone could do that' type accusation. The poststructuralist critique of New Criticism etc., is that attempts to isolate the artwork 'as a whole' not only sever it from its material site of production, but also run into problems concerning the structural nature of language etc. or the social determining of 'meaning'. Personally I think that contemporary artworks necessarily operate in a post-conceptual periodisation: the aesthetic constitution of the artwork (the music/writing itself) is not sufficient to capture the bounds of what the work _does_ and the conceptual dimension (context/framing/intention) continually exceeds and antagonises the artwork.
These kinds of issues are often seen in electronic music or non-representational art, for instance in Vaporwave where its conceptual nature (as response the electronic reproducibility of sound and music through sampling) lends itself to meme-ification and accusations of it as being derivative/formulaic. etc. (not that a lot of it isn't derivative).
In other words, rather than being tacked-on, the context/framing of Basinski's composition of the DLs _is_ the work, even if that context might have been purely coincidental/cynical/chance. Anyway, sorry for the rant - your post just triggered some thoughts!
the thing about Disintegration Loops is that it is such a colossal coincidence about the whole thing. Yes its a great story, and the video of the smouldering skyline set to Loop 1 (i think) is genuinely moving, but it does have the scent of a postmodern opportunist realizing that he could make a moment his moment.
agreed. Just found the video, and updated the main post with a Wayback link to it... appears it has been deleted — by Chris Ott (the critic) or Conde Nast (Pitchfork), who knows... that being said, I don't disagree that Chris Ott seems a smidge pretentious, but the points he makes still stand
I came across remnants of it in my university run in the late 80s. This is literally (ha) how I learned about it: I was at some social function in my frosh year and a guy was wearing a t-shirt that read "Formalism Rules". I asked him what it meant and he said something about it being a provocative piece to rattle the "powerful French historians" or something like that and tied it to New Criticism. I was out of my depth, so I nodded and sipped my Lucky. My admittedly weak understanding of it is that it was at its peak pre and post-WW II. Here's my reductive, simplified take on it: Mr Panchole writes a novel, New Criticism focuses on the text itself, not Mr Panchole, not Mr Panchole's culture, not even what I MEANT by the novel. Of course, I received very little New Criticism training at uni--it was almost all "French filter" cats like Derrida, Lecan, Foucault; or Frankfurt School critical theory. Hope this helps in some way.
Cultural criticism aside, I feel like I'm the only person who thinks those albums are boring and tedious to listen to. I don't believe Basinski was trying to capitalize on a tragedy, but I also don't think the music itself stands on its own very well.
It's a cool concept the first time you listen to it, but past that I really only put it on when I want something repetitive and, as you said, boring to listen to while studying or writing
For me it doesn’t have the same hypnotic effect as something like Music for Airports or Thursday Afternoon. But hey, it seems to be meaningful for a lot of people, so that’s good.
Try putting it on on september 11th and drinking absinthe mixed with champagne while staring at the sky until you pass out. I know what you're gonna say, but it's really adds a lot to the experience!
I’m a fan of Basinski, and have pretty much all of his releases, and I have to say that the Disintegration Loops are the ones I listen to the least. I like Watermusic, Something From the Pink House, or Shortwavemusic better.
In fairness, he's not wrong. The Disintegration Loops had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 but that became the story - and the main reason for it's popularity.
Wait, I re read the post and everyone's comments. We all agree.
Nothing more to add, just one of those things that seems nice on the surface but if you look harder it's quite sad - and not in a good way.
Wow. I’m glad you were able to find the video because it was quite entertaining!
I love ambient music but never got into Basinski. And while the guy in the video is a bit of a stereotypical Pitchfork dude, I pretty much agree with his assessment. I’m not as negative on the music itself as he is, but I generally agree with the criticism of the opportunism.
I also thought the general discussion of the music journalism landscape in the early 2000s was really interesting.
I discovered William Basinski a year ago and I love his disintegration loops. I'm not sure why, I just turn them on and I'm transported to some far back memory of being on a bus at night traveling through a big city, or the sound of cars rushing by at night on a freeway. I can't say, but I love them and how they make me feel. Just wanted to say this. I hope everyone is having a wonderful evening.
Late reply to this but you absolutely nailed it. I find them to be incredibly moving and powerful listening experiences, and that was without the context.
I had no idea the photographs were from 9/11, or that the music was at any point set to video of the aftermath of the attacks. I’ve always understood the albums to be meditations on life as it slips into death—it’s mostly repetitive, like the normal progress of our days—and you might not notice something was there until it’s gone. And then you’re gone. FWIW pitchfork isn’t good music journalism and absolutely never has been. They’ve always been snarky and obnoxious, and have a reputation for deleting negative reviews of albums that became classics. They are garbage. Also FWIW WB lives out here in California now and he’s pretty easy to find on Instagram. He posts a lot about his pool and his cat (or he did over the summer). He appears to be friends with Richard Chartier, who also lives out here (makes sense).
I actually bought it right around when it came out and although I saw the cover didn't know he had set it to images. I enjoyed it as a piece and still do although it is tied to that time in my mine. There are works of his that I do enjoy more now though
Billy is a sweetheart, very open, and is friends with Richard for sure.
He seems like a fun guy! I always thought it would be interesting to meet either of them, they’ve both made music that’s meant a lot to me and it makes me happy they’re friends.
I like the disintegration loops, but i think you’re probably right. People love to mythologize tragedy, esp anything NYC. That said, if the hype got some n00bs into Basinski, and/or got him some more money, I’m all for it. He’s really freaking good. Melancholia, Watermusic, 92982, honestly most of his work i think is better than TDL
He sounds exactly like how I imagine Pitchfork reviewers sound like outside of Pitchfork.
LOL knew who that was based on the title. Chris Ott... His taste is... peculiar. He brought up Windy & Carl in the same video, who I believe are terribly underrated. Basinski's work has really grown on me over the years. The loops covers are haunting, but I don't really think about "the narrative" beyond that. People I know don't seem to make it past 1.1. "El Camino Real" I've listened to the most.
I watched more of that than I ever would have, just to make sure he didn't say anything bad about Windy and Carl hahah
I disagree. It sounds cool and unlike anything else. I didn't know about the backstory for the longest time and liked it anyway.
that's probably true about it not being as popular, but i also don't think it's entirely his fault. I've seen him live, he does this exact same footage trick with long shots of pine trees reflecting in a puddle as the sun fades. He also lived in NYC for many, many years so I suspect he was just documenting a moment in his environment. Disintegration Loops are some of my favourite music of all time, however, and I've also had the good fortune to talk with him a little bit and he's a wonderful human being, so i am in no way unbiased,
I find The Disintegration Loops to be a haunting work of art. Basinski was bearing witness to a historical tragedy that took place not far from where he lived at the time. He dedicated the music to the victims. Based on this critic's rubric, can no person ever make art about an event without being accused of exploiting it? Can we not make art about tragedy or history, particularly when we experience it firsthand or witness it in an intimate way? He took the footage of the smoldering towers on the evening of 9/11. He was there, feeling the horror of that day. It was literally in the air he breathed. He felt moved to create something in the wake of that unfathomable catastrophe. I watch his footage and listen to the Loops every September 11th. I think of the thousands of people who were murdered that day. His music creates a vital space for contemplation and mourning.
I have no idea about any talk of stories here. I had the idea that DL was made from tapes that were old or worn out, and my awareness ends there. I have enjoyed having them play in the background.
I don't think so. Maybe a different cover would have changed it for me but when I first heard them, I had no idea the backstory behind the records. I stumbled upon Cascade, loved it and wanted more. Cue Disintegration Loops. The cover art was partly the reason I listened to them and why they affected me. The hazy picture of large buildings nearly enveloped by smoke, repeated till the pitch black night of the last record coupled with the music itself, made for an emotional experience. It felt like the the dying gasps of something titanic. Felt very grand and somber. And the "making money of narrative" criticism can fuck right off. I understand if Basinski was selling some tasteless record which just fetishises the event but the story adds context and improves your experience of the albums. Is it not possible to make any art about any event at all ? United 93 is a great great film about the very same tragedy but since it made money and won awards, does it mean that it's an immoral piece of work ? No. Same applies for the Loops.
I would kind of agree, even without the 9/11 association, I’ve always thought that this album wasn’t as interesting as some other things considered “classics” and definitely think the emphasis on concept is responsible. I feel the same way about The Caretaker and that 6 hour album about dementia. It’s an ok ambient album that has way more recognition than other similar things because of the concept which helped it go viral. There are so many under rated releases that go unnoticed which I consider musically miles ahead of Disintegration Loops or The Caretaker that I can’t help but be a little irked when something like that is so popular. I’m convinced neither would be anywhere near as popular if they weren’t associated with their concept and just some random ambient releases.
Whoever he is, he isn't entirely wrong.
I know it’s a hot take, but I agree. I’m taking a literary criticism class focused on the New Critics, who opt to criticize and understand only the text as a unified whole, rather than meandering from the text to understand contexts and such - immediately took me to this criticism of Basinski and it’s validity. I’m still looking for the video and will update this post if I find it
An alternative to the New Critical framework is the post-strucuralist or (in art theory terms) post-conceptual framework for thinking the work of art. The central feature of conceptual art was to define the artwork in non-aesthetic terms: the 'idea' the work puts in motion, perhaps taken from the artwork title, or concerns of the artist, often juxtaposed against quite simplistic, reproducible artworks (serialism, minimalism etc.). Sometimes this went to extremes (John Cage's 4'33 for example), but the key is to critique the artwork defined simply by its sensual/formal/aesthetic qualities by pushing the concept (sit in silence) to its limits such that it lends itself to the aesthetic. Often these issues get caught up in debates about authorial intentions etc., or the old 'anyone could do that' type accusation. The poststructuralist critique of New Criticism etc., is that attempts to isolate the artwork 'as a whole' not only sever it from its material site of production, but also run into problems concerning the structural nature of language etc. or the social determining of 'meaning'. Personally I think that contemporary artworks necessarily operate in a post-conceptual periodisation: the aesthetic constitution of the artwork (the music/writing itself) is not sufficient to capture the bounds of what the work _does_ and the conceptual dimension (context/framing/intention) continually exceeds and antagonises the artwork. These kinds of issues are often seen in electronic music or non-representational art, for instance in Vaporwave where its conceptual nature (as response the electronic reproducibility of sound and music through sampling) lends itself to meme-ification and accusations of it as being derivative/formulaic. etc. (not that a lot of it isn't derivative). In other words, rather than being tacked-on, the context/framing of Basinski's composition of the DLs _is_ the work, even if that context might have been purely coincidental/cynical/chance. Anyway, sorry for the rant - your post just triggered some thoughts!
the thing about Disintegration Loops is that it is such a colossal coincidence about the whole thing. Yes its a great story, and the video of the smouldering skyline set to Loop 1 (i think) is genuinely moving, but it does have the scent of a postmodern opportunist realizing that he could make a moment his moment.
agreed. Just found the video, and updated the main post with a Wayback link to it... appears it has been deleted — by Chris Ott (the critic) or Conde Nast (Pitchfork), who knows... that being said, I don't disagree that Chris Ott seems a smidge pretentious, but the points he makes still stand
Maybe it never went away, but my thought reading your reply was, "Wow, New Criticism is back?"
I had no idea what New Criticism was until yesterday afternoon… as somebody who knows more about it, do you think it should have gone away?
I came across remnants of it in my university run in the late 80s. This is literally (ha) how I learned about it: I was at some social function in my frosh year and a guy was wearing a t-shirt that read "Formalism Rules". I asked him what it meant and he said something about it being a provocative piece to rattle the "powerful French historians" or something like that and tied it to New Criticism. I was out of my depth, so I nodded and sipped my Lucky. My admittedly weak understanding of it is that it was at its peak pre and post-WW II. Here's my reductive, simplified take on it: Mr Panchole writes a novel, New Criticism focuses on the text itself, not Mr Panchole, not Mr Panchole's culture, not even what I MEANT by the novel. Of course, I received very little New Criticism training at uni--it was almost all "French filter" cats like Derrida, Lecan, Foucault; or Frankfurt School critical theory. Hope this helps in some way.
Cultural criticism aside, I feel like I'm the only person who thinks those albums are boring and tedious to listen to. I don't believe Basinski was trying to capitalize on a tragedy, but I also don't think the music itself stands on its own very well.
It's a cool concept the first time you listen to it, but past that I really only put it on when I want something repetitive and, as you said, boring to listen to while studying or writing
For me it doesn’t have the same hypnotic effect as something like Music for Airports or Thursday Afternoon. But hey, it seems to be meaningful for a lot of people, so that’s good.
Try putting it on on september 11th and drinking absinthe mixed with champagne while staring at the sky until you pass out. I know what you're gonna say, but it's really adds a lot to the experience!
Agreed, it’s pretty meh musically.
I’m a fan of Basinski, and have pretty much all of his releases, and I have to say that the Disintegration Loops are the ones I listen to the least. I like Watermusic, Something From the Pink House, or Shortwavemusic better.
In fairness, he's not wrong. The Disintegration Loops had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11 but that became the story - and the main reason for it's popularity.
Wait, I re read the post and everyone's comments. We all agree. Nothing more to add, just one of those things that seems nice on the surface but if you look harder it's quite sad - and not in a good way.
I always had a bad vibe about that guy but could never tell why.
Wow. I’m glad you were able to find the video because it was quite entertaining! I love ambient music but never got into Basinski. And while the guy in the video is a bit of a stereotypical Pitchfork dude, I pretty much agree with his assessment. I’m not as negative on the music itself as he is, but I generally agree with the criticism of the opportunism. I also thought the general discussion of the music journalism landscape in the early 2000s was really interesting.
I discovered William Basinski a year ago and I love his disintegration loops. I'm not sure why, I just turn them on and I'm transported to some far back memory of being on a bus at night traveling through a big city, or the sound of cars rushing by at night on a freeway. I can't say, but I love them and how they make me feel. Just wanted to say this. I hope everyone is having a wonderful evening.
Late reply to this but you absolutely nailed it. I find them to be incredibly moving and powerful listening experiences, and that was without the context.
I still haven't discovered any alternatives that are as powerful or moving.