In 2001, supposedly the day before the attack on the World Trade Centre, William Basinski finished Disintegration Loops, which would go on to become a legendary piece of work. “The tracks were created from pre-existing loops as they were transferred to digital masters, made unique by the way the magnetic tape crumbled slowly away, causing unexpectedly beautiful and affecting progressions in the music.” In the 1980’s, Basinski had been making ambient music and recording it onto tape, creating a sound object that he would later capture the slow degradation of. Basinski only retrospectively decided that this work was spiritually related to the 9/11 terrorist attacks. He said that beforehand, he felt “The most profound thing to me immediately was the redemptive nature of what had just transpired; the fact that the life and death of each of these melodies was captured in another medium and remembered.”
In relation to my work, Basinski’s Disintegration Loops are relevant for numerous reasons. Similar to the melodies being stored for years in what Basinski calls “The Land That Time Forgot” (a backroom in his loft apartment), the letters I have found have been hidden away for years; both of our materials being forgotten about and left is a significant similarity. We are both starting our processes with a pre-existing material. Basinski looped his material sonically whilst transferring them from tape to digital. Mentally, I have looped my questions about the letters and the final words of the letter ever since I found them out of curiosity; a series of never-ending, unanswerable questions and intrigue draws me to the material, leading me to want to share it. Basinski’s work directly concerns memory; it is the sound of forgetting, the looping and degradation of an artefact of sound, once a clear and legible organisation of sound slowly deconstructed into warbly nothingness, much like how the questions I have about the subjects of the letters loop on forever, meeting no end however they will one day be absorbed into my subconscious, in presenting the work I am extending their memory upon to others.
Aside from the material aspect of the tape degradation, the piece’s duration is also important in displaying the sound of forgetting. Forgetting happens over long periods of time, and displaying this in a truthful, powerful and affective way is best done over long periods of time. Also, I aim to take this into account with my own work and will consider this when the time comes to experiment practically.
Basinski’s Disintegration Loops’ relation to materiality and memory is what makes me want to emulate or attempt something similar. My work is related to secrets and their memory. Can a secret last forever if it is bound to existence by materiality? Whilst Basinski’s looping and degradation of forgone melodies captures their “life and death”, I aim to capture the permanence of Jeff’s final words and acknowledge with my work the beauty of hidden secrets and their preservation. My current aim is to make a tape loop using the final words of the letters. I will experiment with different ways of tape manipulation and rhythmic speech patterns, as well as background sound on the tape, in order to find the best-suited aesthetic qualities for my work.
Doran, J., 2012. Time Becomes A Loop: William Basinski Interviewed. The Quietus. Published 15 November. Available at: https://thequietus.com/interviews/william-basinski-disintegration-loops-interview/