William Basinski >> Unreal-to-real

≈≈≈ William Basinski - "The River" (excerpt) ≈≈≈

||| (recorded 1983; Raster-Noton Records, 2002 / 2062 Music, 2007) |||

I've still never heard this whole album (The River), but I've listened to this excerpt so many times over the last 5 or more years that it's part of my DNA by now.  I downloaded it from one of William Basinski's own webpages, or from the Raster-Noton website, when it was being given as a free taste of the album; it does not appear to be offered anymore.  It is apparently the first three minutes of the album's first track, meaning the beginning of the first CD of this double-CD album.  Both tracks are untitled, and hence are generally referred to as "The River Part I" and "The River Part II."  I find this music to be incredibly eerie and illicit, yet somehow sensual, like the famous blood-elevator sequence in The Shining:

That movie never actually shows anyone being murdered, yet is rightfully considered one of the greatest horror flicks ever.  By the same token, much of Basinski's music contains an implied sense of danger lurking around the next corner, even if that danger never materializes outright.


Summary of this album's history:

1983: Recorded in NYC

2002: Released as a 2xCD on German electronic label Raster-Noton

2007: Released as a 2xCD on Basinski's own U.S. label, 2062

2008: Remastered (presumably) & released as a digital file by Basinski on 2062, as The River (Alternative Mixes)

I'm not sure why there was a two-decade delay in getting it released, but I guess that fits in with Basinski's methodical, perfectionist style.  The River is nowhere near as legendary and influential as Basinski's 2002 album The Disintegration Loops, which has one of the most interesting backstories of any album in history.  But it has a similar genesis and a similar overall sound of unsettling, decaying elegance, so it deserves to be more widely known.  Raster-Noton says:

"The River is the culmination of William Basinski's shortwave music experiments.  It was recorded in real time in 1983 using tape loops and shortwave radio static.  The loops were all culled from the airwaves, short bits of string melody taken from the muzak radio station, slowed down and mixed live to cassette from two 50's Norelco reel-to-reel decks with a random accompaniment of shifting shortwave radio static."

The page also quotes Basinski himself as saying:

"Growing up in the 70's, with a love for the lush sound of the Mellotron, but not having the pocketbook to own one, I decided to try to create my own.  I had heard that the sounds were recorded on tape loops, so I began recording small bits of lush strings from intros and interludes in muzak songs to use as my 'keys.'  The aspect of pulling all the sounds from the airwaves, to create something from nothing, fascinated me.  With these elemental, organic loops that I had saved aside for The River, I was attempting to record 'the music of the spheres.'  The 90 minute length was decried [sic] by the length of the two sides of the cassette.  The idea was to have a piece which could repeat endlessly, creating an eternal, meditative womb of tranquility."

This is true ambient music, since it lacks drums or rhythms of any kind, which forces the listener's brain to create some sort of rhythm to go along with it, often the beating of one's own heart, which is of course about 60 bpm, or the sound of an air conditioner unit rattling, or anything in earshot.  "The River" reminds me of Seefeel's 1993 track "Signals," but was obviously recorded a decade before it:

I've heard the genre "Isolationism" used to describe this type of warm, womb-like, slightly claustrophobic ambient music, and I wish it would've caught on, at least outside the U.K.  To explore this kind of music further, read a very interesting 1995 article on it here.  It's by the same talented music critic (I rarely use that phrase) whom I mentioned in the Bark Psychosis post as having popularized the term "post-rock."

From Basinski's own MySpace page; captioned "hymns of oblivion days, NYC 92?"

At his NYC performance space called Arcadia, 2001; photo by Charlotte Corday

Sorry ladies, but I found out in the last week or two that Billy B. is gay.  I also found out he has been longtime friends with weirdo balladeer Antony Hegarty of Antony & The Johnsons, which at least gives him points with the mopey transvestite hipster crowd.  Basinski has rightfully become an ambient star in the last decade, joining the select company of the likes of John Cage, Brian Eno, Zoviet:France, Geir Jenssen (a.k.a. Biosphere), and Steve Roach.  Well, he's not in Cage or Eno's realm yet, but he could get there someday, if he keeps traveling slowly enough.


I recently found a stash of four U.K. mags with the band Curve on the cover, from '91-92, which I had bought as a lot on eBay five years ago during one of my many periods of Curve infatuation.  I have to transcribe this hilarious review of Slayer's Decade Of Aggression from the Oct. 26, 1991 issue of Melody Maker, credited to The Stud Brothers.  ("Mong" is apparently slang for Mongoloid.)

Welcome to the kingdom of the Mong.

Decade Of Aggression begins with a thousand, ten thousand, maybe a million monkey-men baying the words "SLAY-YAH! SLAY-YAH!"  And on it goes, on and on, this simian mantra, oblivious to the all-too-audible fact that Slay-yah have long since taken to the stage.  How did these people find their way to the venue?  They are morons.  Even Slay-yah's singer, Tom Arraya, the Slay-yah himself, knows they are morons.  Just ten minutes in he has to warn them to stop beating one another up in their thoughtless haste to bond with each other (and the front of the stage and the beer-soaked floor).

Ninety minutes later (this album is so painfully long) the Slay-yah is still failing to control his loyal but unruly acolytes.  These people are instinctive in the most ignoble, grubby, lemming-like way.  They bay, bash, crash, hurt one another.  And for what?  To what?  Slayer are the most boring band on the planet, unless of course you find the atonal racket of a pneumatic drill accompanied by the squeal of a car-alarm and the earthly grunts of overweight-workmen in any way compelling.  Okay, so it's interesting for somewhere between two and five seconds, like in "What the f***'s going on?"  But this album is over five thousand seconds long.

With a normal Slayer album you might be momentarily distracted by the thesaurus of mutilations masquerading as lyrics.  Slayer live, however, lack even this dubious subtlety.  Words such as "strangulation" and "cancer" are reduced to an incoherent single syllable: "WHUUURGH!," delivered in Tom's inimitable catatonic roar.  No single track is worth mentioning as every one of the 21 here is identical to its predecessor.  We honestly doubt there's ever been an album as comprehensively, endlessly inane and repetitious as this.  In that sense, Decade Of Aggression is the ultimate Slayer album, perfectly illustrating their astonishing lack of imagination. 

They are heartrendingly cretinous.  Pity them.

Planets with similar climates: Tangerine Dream - "Sequent C'" (1973), Seefeel - "Signals" (1993), Brian Eno - "Lizard Point" (1982), Plexi - "Bunny" (1996), Main - "Crater Scar (Adrenochrome)" (1995), Panther Skull - "Slothwave" (2005), Biosphere - "Chukhung" (1997).