Acclaimed ambient and experimental composer William Basinski presents the Canadian Premiere of Arcadia Archive: an immersive, transcendent live performance that combines music drawn from Basinski’s extensive archival work with 40+ year-old tape loops. For this special VIFF Live concert, Basinski will premiere a new work – a prayer for peace, channeled via 1970s Uher tape machines and digital feedback and archival piano recordings from Arcadia, his former loft in Brooklyn – accompanied by a new “nocturnal video work” created by Basinski’s longtime partner and collaborator, artist-filmmaker James Elaine.
William Basinski has been working in experimental media for over 30 years in New York City and California. Employing obsolete technology and analog tape loops, his haunting and melancholy soundscapes explore the temporal nature of life and resound with the reverberations of memory and the mystery of time. His epic, 4-disc masterwork, The Disintegration Loops, received international critical acclaim and was named by Pitchfork as one the best ambient albums of all time.
New York-based avant-garde composer William Basinski sculpts samples, drones and feedback loops into soundscapes rich in melancholic atmosphere.
The Guardian, 2017
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Photo by James Elaine, 2011
William Basinski
William Basinski is a classically trained musician and composer who has been working in experimental media for over 30 years in NYC and most recently, California. Employing obsolete technology and analogue tape loops, his haunting and melancholy soundscapes explore the temporal nature of life and resound with the reverberations of memory and the mystery of time. His epic 4-disc masterwork, The Disintegration Loops received international critical acclaim and was chosen as one of the top 50 albums of 2004 by Pitchfork Media. The Temporary Residence deluxe LP box-set reissue from 2012 was awarded best re-issue of the year and a score of 10 on Pitchfork. Installations and films made in collaboration with artist-filmmaker, James Elaine have been presented in festivals and museums internationally, and his concerts are presented to sold out crowds around the world. Basinski was chosen by Music Director, Antony Hegarty to create music for the Robert Wilson opera, The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic which had its world premiere at the Manchester International Festival in July 2011 and toured Europe in 2012 and North America in 2013. Orchestral transcriptions of The Disintegration Loops by Maxim Moston have been performed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Queen Elizabeth Hall and La Batie Festival in Geneva, Switzerland, Dark Mofo Festival in Hobart Tasmania and most recently Pitchfork Midwinter Festival with the Chicago Philharmonic and Primavera Sound Barcelona.
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