William Basinski: Enters the same "River" twice
William Basinski has announced the re-release of his early 80s-work „The River“ on his own imprint 2062 Music. Originally published on German label Raster-Noton, „The River“ had been out of print for many years, haunting blogs and magazines as a classic and working up growing demand. Now, William Basinski has remastered the original tapes for a perfect take at „one of his favourite pieces“. „The River is the culmination of my shortwavemusic experiments“, William Basinski elucidated in his announcement, „a 90 minute meditation recorded live with microphones in the studio at music laboratories in Brooklyn in 1982. All of the material on the loops came from the airwaves, so this was my experiment in recording 'the music of the spheres'.“ The result was a dark and ominous, yet somehow consoling and atmospheric composition, which stretched out over two CDs and kept returning to a haunting motive glowing on top like a nightly rainbow. Anyone who enjoyed listening to „Shortwave Music“, another recent re-issue, will love „The River“, even though its more secluded and monomoodal approach requires concentrated listening throughout. Quick movers will be rewarded, as William Basinski promised: „I will sign the first 100 copies ordered!“
By complete coincidence, the remastered version of „The River“ coincides with the „updated and remastered version of William Basinski and Richard Chartier's universally acclaimed work Untitled 1-2.“ Even though Japanese record company Spekk had printed a full 1.300 copies of the album back in 2004, that quantity was gone after a mere two months. No wonder, considering the haptically wonderful, soft digipack the disc came wrapped in. The Line-release will, however, be more than just a new edition of 1.000. Instead, it includes two entirely new pieces, „Untitled 3“ and „Untitled 3 (reprise)“ and has been remastered by Taylor Deupree.
„Untitled 3“ and „Untitled 3 (reprise)“ contain the most recent material on the album. Richard Chartier has contributed sources from 1993 and the 2006 sound installation Mixing Desk commissioned for the Bleeding Edge Festival at the Montalvo Arts Center in Saratoga, while William Basinski's elements date back to 1997 and were realised using his beloved Voyetra 8 Synthesizer.
"Richard and I became friends after meeting at Tonic in NY when he and Taylor Deupree did a show with Carsten Nicolai“, William Basinski recalls of his first meeting with Chartier, „He contacted me about a possible collaboration and sent me a track which I thought was very rich and harmonically similar to something I had recently been working on, a very swampy, dark piece I was calling "The Garden of Brokenness" after a very beautiful new installation by James Elaine.“ William Basinski then went on to work on the first piece alone, before a duo session with Richard Chartier delivered the final result. The second attempt went even more smoothly: „Untitled 2 came together very quickly, and there you have it! I love Richard's work... very elegant, like the man!“
Homepage: William Basinski/2062 Music
Homepage: William Basinski at MySpace
Homepage: Line Records
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