William Basinski

William Basinski was born in Houston, Texas, on June 25, 1958, and is is an American experimental musician and composer, currently residing in Los Angeles. Classically trained, he plays clarinet and jazz saxophone, and has worked with various forms of experimental media - sound and video - since 1978, mostly in New York. One of his main compositional tools is the tape loop on reel-to-reel machines, and these also play the main role in his live performances. His work has been released by a variety of internationally based labels, including his own n5MD label. On a personal level he has always been open with him being gay, and states that his main inspiration comes, to noone's surprise, from other minimalists such as Steve Reich and Brian Eno. Basinski is probably best known for his four-volume album The Disintegration Loops (2002–2003), consisting of decaying twenty-year-old tapes of his earlier music. In 2012, he composed the score for the documentary Pursuit of Loneliness that premiered at Sundance Jan. 22 that year.