William Basinski: A Red Score in Tile (2062)
Borrowed from the library
I've posted about Basinski on here before. I learned about him and his most famous work, The Disintegration Loops, from a story on NPR. This is an early work of his I guess, credited as created in 1979. There's scant information, the notes stating, "Analogue tape loop." The cover is a detail from a painting/construction of the same name.
When he says a tape loop, he isn't kidding. It's a loop playing continuously for 45 minutes. It has a fuzzy, indistinct analog sound, the instruments largely unidentifiable.
The Disintegration Loops requires patience, it's also tape loops playing for long periods of time. But for most of those, we can hear the process of the tape medium breaking down. The way it deteriorates interesting.
Here, does it get a little fuzzier by the end? It's difficult to tell, possibly not. It's the same thing playing without any changes for the length of the recording.
I knew it would be repetitive, but without perceiving some sort of change, what's the point in it being that length? I guess the first issue was an LP, Could this have been a recording for an installation? (A less common occurrence at the time.)
Admittedly, I was reading when I had this on, and even nodded off once or twice. But, half the length would have made the same point.
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