William Basinski-Cascade (2015)
William Basinski-Cascade (2015)
“I am the Empire at
the end of the decadence.”
Paul Verlaine
By: Ghost Writer
Little by
Little modern composer Wiilliam Basinski seems to be creating a very particular
universe all of his own, taking the best from minimalism as a powerful base for
his creations, Basinski is becoming a really important name, pretty much
aligning himself nowadays with the names of his musical ancestors, people like
the great La Monte Young or Steve Reich, Basinski's work is as close to genius
as he easily takes the minimalistic route but adds enough elements to make his
music immediately recognizable and unique, his brand of minimalism is one that
at the same time slightly touches the haunted territories of someone like The
Caretaker, making music today that belongs to yesterday, their music reminds me
of the sound of the music my mother used to listen on the radio when I was just
a little kid, I don't remember the songs, the lyrics (well, just some of them
very vaguely) or the rhythms, but I do remember that weary almost fading sound,
in my mind it has the same effect of a faded almost discolored photography of
decades ago, like a time capsule on our hands, or as Basinski likes to put it,
in our heads.
In Basinski world everything falls apart little by little, and just as one of his compositions became the soundtrack to the tragic September 11 events and its disintegrating towers, Cascades sounds pretty much like that, is a sound that is slowly being dissolved, a memory that is beginning to fade away, remember that fabulous and dense Pixar movie Inside Out (Charlie Kauffman for kids?) when memories and "islands" slowly begin to fall apart? If it wasn't a children movie, Basinski would be the perfect man to soundtrack it, is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in sound, his music is slow motion disintegration, nostalgic destruction, it could be nature, buildings, human beings, memories, objects or life itself, is destruction but in a natural, artistic and ordered way.
Cascade, as many of Basinski’s works is a recording rescued from the past, piano lines transformed into little motifs degraded by time, turned into an endless vibrating loop summited to more digital degradation by Basinski, it may sound simple, perhaps too simple, but that's part of Basinski magic, his ability to turn the devastating effect of time into sound, into a whole concept and creating something special out of it, he commands time and its relentless pace and he is capable to print it on sound, his work is almost detail obsessive, we see time slowing down with each note, we see fast track how everything succumbs to time, it's quite engaging and at the same time scary, it affect us in an inner way, and that's precisely the art in Basinski work, and he has become a master at it, and Cascade is another brilliant piece of phantasmagoric minimalism from a genius whose talent is not degrading as time passes by.
In Basinski world everything falls apart little by little, and just as one of his compositions became the soundtrack to the tragic September 11 events and its disintegrating towers, Cascades sounds pretty much like that, is a sound that is slowly being dissolved, a memory that is beginning to fade away, remember that fabulous and dense Pixar movie Inside Out (Charlie Kauffman for kids?) when memories and "islands" slowly begin to fall apart? If it wasn't a children movie, Basinski would be the perfect man to soundtrack it, is Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in sound, his music is slow motion disintegration, nostalgic destruction, it could be nature, buildings, human beings, memories, objects or life itself, is destruction but in a natural, artistic and ordered way.
Cascade, as many of Basinski’s works is a recording rescued from the past, piano lines transformed into little motifs degraded by time, turned into an endless vibrating loop summited to more digital degradation by Basinski, it may sound simple, perhaps too simple, but that's part of Basinski magic, his ability to turn the devastating effect of time into sound, into a whole concept and creating something special out of it, he commands time and its relentless pace and he is capable to print it on sound, his work is almost detail obsessive, we see time slowing down with each note, we see fast track how everything succumbs to time, it's quite engaging and at the same time scary, it affect us in an inner way, and that's precisely the art in Basinski work, and he has become a master at it, and Cascade is another brilliant piece of phantasmagoric minimalism from a genius whose talent is not degrading as time passes by.
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