About William Basinski
William James Basinski (born June 25, 1958) is an American avant-garde composer based in Los Angeles, California. He is also a clarinetist, saxophonist, sound artist, and video artist. Basinski is best known for his four-volume album The Disintegration Loops (2002–2003), constructed from gradually decaying twenty-year-old tapes of his earlier music. == Biography == === Early life === William James Basinski was born in 1958 in Houston, Texas. He was raised in a Catholic family, and states that he had his first "really mystical, wonderful, magical" musical experiences as an infant at Houston's St. Anne Church. His father was a scientist contracted to NASA, which caused the family to move often. Basinski says he knew that he was gay from an early age. A classically trained clarinetist, Basinski studied jazz saxophone and composition at the University of North Texas in the late 1970s. In 1978 inspired by minimalists such as Steve Reich and Brian Eno, he began developing his own vocabulary using tape loops and old reel-to-reel tape decks.
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