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Music Legend's 9/11 Elegy Still Resonates Today
23 Feb
Summary
- Composer Basinski created 'The Disintegration Loops' as tapes degraded.
- The music became an elegy after the 9/11 tragedy in New York.
- Anohni and Basinski's artistic journeys are deeply intertwined.
In the summer of 2001, composer William Basinski discovered his tapes were degrading, with their iron oxide particles literally falling off. He captured this disintegration, creating unique loops that then became an elegy after he witnessed the 9/11 attacks from his New York home.
His work, 'The Disintegration Loops,' first released in 2002, is now considered a crucial 21st-century recording. Basinski's avant-garde space, Arcadia, nurtured artists like Anohni, whose own career also took off around this time.
Anohni's performances at Arcadia fostered a close artistic relationship, with her spreading the word about Basinski's masterpiece. A significant early public performance of 'The Disintegration Loops' occurred in November 2001 at PS 122, accompanying a film of 9/11 smoke by Basinski.
The music's profound emotional resonance is linked to shared experiences of trauma, including the AIDS epidemic, and ongoing concerns about ecological collapse. Basinski himself grew up with the threat of nuclear annihilation, further shaping his artistic perspective.
In 2011, 'Disintegration Loop 1.1' was performed by the Wordless Music Orchestra at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, commemorating the 10-year anniversary of 9/11. This event drew a large audience and left them in stunned silence, highlighting the music's enduring power.
