Jacob had a copy of the Disintegration Loops when he was here. The album packaging was as monumental as the loops themselves.
I’ve pulled the loops up on Spotify for a listen today in observance of 9/11. I can think of no better requiem.
This article from Haunted Ink explains this music better than I can:
These recordings were made in August and September of 2001. Now, this is where the story gets impossible. William Basinski lives in Brooklyn, less than a nautical mile from the World Trade Centers. On September 11, 2001, as he was completing The Disintegration Loops, he watched these towers disintegrate. He and his friends went on the roof of his building and played the Loops over and over, all day long, watching the slow death of one New York and the slow rise of another, all the while listening to the death of one music and the creation of another. As I said, it’s impossible. The music, however, is beautiful, subtle, sad, frightening, confusing, and ultimately uplifting. What’s he created here is a living document: a field recording of orchestrated decay. It sounds like nothing else I’ve heard, yet, at its core, it’s the simplest and most familiar music I can imagine.