Reflections: William Basinski “Arcadia Archive”

REFLECTIONS presents ambient legend William Basinski in a transcendent evening of sound, light, and expansive, emotional space.

Live mixing 40+ year old tape loops and archival piano recordings from Arcadia, his former loft in Brooklyn, Basinski will premiere a new work of melancholic intensity – a prayer for peace, channeled via 1970s Uher tape machines and digital feedback. Canadian composer Flore Laurentienne shares an opening set for string quartet and analog synth.

“Churches are musical instruments,” says Basinski. “They’re incredibly sophisticated machines.” We can’t wait to pair it all with an immersive, visionary light experience projected on the walls of the historic Grace Cathedral.

Listen

The Clocktower at the Beach (1979) (Excerpt 2)

Tickets

Event Details 

Doors open for seating at 7 pm. The entrance to the cathedral is at the top of the Great Steps. The accessible entrance is via the glass doors on Taylor Street or from the cathedral garage.

About the Artists

WILLIAM BASINSKI is a classically trained 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. Basinski was chosen by music director Antony Hegarty to score the Robert Wilson opera, The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic. 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. With Preston Wendel he released a jazz-inflected LP under the name Sparkle Division, with special guests such as the late Henry Grimes on upright bass. In March 2022 the album “. . on reflection” by William Basinski & Janek Schaefer was released by Temporary Residence, Ltd.

FLORE LAURENTIENNE draws inspiration from the rivers and rugged wilderness of his native Quebec. His mesmerizing Volume I and II albums were released on RVNG Intl. in 2022, summoning beauty through repetition and constraint.

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