WILLIAM BASINSKI – Water Music I, II

William Basinski (born June 25, 1958) is an American avant-garde composer based in New York City. He is also a clarinetist, saxophonist, sound artist, and video artist. Basinski is best known for his four-volume album The Disintegration Loops (2002–2003), constructed from rapidly decaying twenty-year-old tapes of his earlier music.

His first release was Shortwavemusic. Although created in 1983, it was first released on vinyl in a small edition in 1998 by Carsten Nicolai’s Raster-Noton sub-label. This was followed by Watermusic, self-released in 2000 on Basinski’s 2062 Records. Another 2-disc work was Variations: A Movement in Chrome Primitive, 1980: it was finally released in 2004 by David Tibet on the Durtro/Die Stadt label. At the time this work was created, Basinski was experimenting with compositions for piano and tape loops.