(2020) William Basinski - Lamentations


Review:
William Basinski’s reputation as the foremost producer of profound meditations on death and decay has long been established, but on his new album, Lamentations, he transforms operatic tragedy into abyssal beauty. More than any other work since The Disintegration Loops, there is an ominous grief throughout the album, and that sense of loss lingers like an emotional vapor. Captured and constructed from tape loops and studies from Basinski’s archives – dating back to 1979 – Lamentations is over forty years of mournful sighs meticulously crafted into songs. They are shaped by the inevitable passage of time and the indisputable collapsing of space – and their collective resonance is infinite and eternal. A quintessential Basinski record in every way, it’s a profoundly moving – and at times, unsettling – piece of music. “These were kind of rejects,” he says of the album’s beginnings. “Digging deep into the archive I found this collection of loops. They weren’t the lush, beautiful ones that I’ve used throughout my career. But at the time it felt like, ‘Nope, there’s something here.’” The loops in question – a haunting, evocative set of opera vocals – form a 15-minute suite which serves as Lamentation’s jaw-dropping climax. But the album showcases an expansive breadth of Basinski’s archive; O, My Daughter, O, My Sorrow is built from a sample he recorded with ANOHNI while the pair served as co-music directors for the opera The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic, while Tear Vial holds an even more special significance. “That, I can tell, is one of my earliest piano loops,” says Basinski. “It’s from 1978, in San Francisco. The reason I can tell is because when I first started making loops, I didn’t know to cut the loop on the bias, so you get a little cross fade. And I would just cut them, right angles. So there’s a click. But I love it, so I decided, ‘OK, yeah let’s just leave that.’”





Tracklist:
01 - For Whom The Bell Tolls
02 - The Wheel of Fortune
03 - Paradise Lost
04 - Tear Vial
05 - O, My Daughter, O, My Sorrow
06 - Passio
07 - Punch and Judy
08 - Silent Spring
09 - Transfiguration
10 - All These Too, I, I Love
11 - Please, This Shit Has Got To Stop
12 - Fin


Media Report:
Genre: ambient
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits