La música ambient de William Basinski

A master of tape loop manipulation, composer William Basinski is known best for his mournful, mysterious, five-hour-long recording The Disintegration Loops. Fifteen years ago, while digitizing fragile reels of tape, he discovered a transitory beauty as they literally crumbled in the tape deck, but found new life as digital files. Now again, Basinski has rescued old tapes to create Cascade,another mesmerizing ambient landscape. "I agonized over these and almost threw them in the trash," he wrote in a promotional email. Cascade appears to be built from a single fragile piano riff, drenched in reverb, slightly overmodulated and looped for nearly 40 minutes. But as usual with this most subtle composer, there's much below Cascade's shimmering surface. Instead of stasis, a slight tug of current floats you down a rippling streamlet. The music emerges from nowhere, shifts almost imperceptibly, then quietly recedes. Why it packs as much emotional punch as it does is a mystery best left unanswered. Cascade, aside from its dark beauty and quiet power, is a vindication for all packrats — proof that having second thoughts about what to trash and what to save can be a glorious thing. —Tom Huizenga, US National Public Radio