Well it’s Friday night and William Basinski is in town. That’s quite a coup for the Attenborough Arts Centre’s spring season, the iconic electronic musician seems to head away from his LA base for brief bursts these days. Yesterday Leeds, tomorrow Oslo then presumably back home, but tonight he’s doing the Basinski thing from the stage of the swishly refurbed, fabulously friendly ACCA theatre.
Unsurprisingly for an artist with such kudos it’s a sell-out, he is after all an incumbent in the avant/art rock hall of fame (if there were such a thing). Part of bohemian New York’s creative hubbub from the early eighties onwards, he has emerged as one of America’s most significant contemporary musicians, a crafter of profound soundscapes from ageing tape sources. ‘The Disintegration Loops’ (released between 2001 and 2004), his dark ambient masterpiece inspired by witnessing 9/11 from his Brooklyn rooftop, is still cited as a pivotal electronic music statement. So as you might guess there are plenty of beards, old and young, plus a fair few gilttery boots and arty coats filing into the gorgeous, wood-clad auditorium. Anticipation seems high, bustling through the part-committed, part-curious crowd.
When support for the evening, Brighton-based experimental musician Penelope Trappes enters stage left, draped in a pristine white robe, there is nothing to suggest this leftfield energy is going to evaporate. Trappes, an acclaimed artist with a Houndstooth back catalogue, will soon be testing different ground with the forthcoming ‘Heavenly Spheres’ released on her own Nite Hive imprint. That self-assurance comes across in tonight’s stunning performance, an uninterrupted thirty minute dream-like expansion of new material. Positioned between two boom mics with a dominoed arrangement of laptop and synths on a modest table, Trappes glides through the set with grace and poise. Her music comes steeped in sung atmospherics, brooding drones and tidal wave forms, all fused with invention and a sense of tension.
Two things stand out tonight: firstly her vocal power, swooping from choral clarity to operatic grandeur and touched with a folk-singing purity; and secondly the staggering visuals, courtesy of Agnes Haus. Projected large behind Trappes they unravel, sometimes abstract, sometimes figurative but always in harmony with the evolving piece.
In contrast William Basinski’s post-interval entrance is low key and informal. Sure, the dry ice thickens and the lights dim but there’s no additional pomp, he simply strolls on with a wave, a smile and a large glass of white. Impossibly tall, thin and rock star, from leather coat to T-shirt, mirror shades to lengthy mane of greying hair, this is presence. He’s also become well known for his surprisingly banter-filled intros of late and tonight finds him once again on top form. In his low Texan drawl plus wry smile he welcomes us to his “little end of the world show”, apologises that he’ll be sat behind his console “like some high priestess” and consequently not showing off his usual “booted marionette” twirls. Then with a last sip he announces “let’s spin the wheel of fortune”.
What unravels from this point defies the gig reviewers’ guidebook, a fifty-minute sound event that shudders and breathes with a life of its own. Segments seem spun from elements of the 2020 ‘Lamentations’ album but that may be coincidental, part of the illusive nature of a Basinski show. This journey begins anthemically, a voluminous loop of orchestral strings, teasing with distortion and quivering with terror. Further on an aria, the yearning soprano voice soaring above the crashing soundtrack, then later still snatches of a woman’s work song and the fluted calm of pan pipes. As reference points these elements return unpredictably, conjured from the chambers of Basinski’s mysterious gizmos where tape sources seem to regenerate.
Experiencing this unfold live brings fresh surprises. Basinski is not known for beats but the graphic clicks as the loops recycle produce a jerky mechanical rhythm, a kind of fractured dance. There’s a thrilling raw edge to it all. This is not smoothly seamless electronica, but something more primeval, more rough and ready, unstable, more punk. You might also think that a William Basinski gig should be taken in with eyes closed for immersion’s sake, but that would miss out on his magnetic physicality. At times, head bowed, his large hands appear to ghost lightly over the controls. At others he twists on his seat, arms conducting extravagantly or fists clutched tight to his chest as he mimes to the operatic surges. Watching Basinski acting out theatrically adds a disconcerting gothic charm to an already cataclysmic happening.
But amongst all this drama his music shows intense sensitivity. As the vocal loops call to each other and as the gentle piped melodies gradually silence we are left with stillness and maybe resolution. Work done, Basinski looks down while the audience ease back momentarily before a standing applause. Some reach their arms skywards.
Having “eaten up all our mushy peas”, Basinski rewards us with ‘Subterraneans’ as an encore, a recent reworking of the Bowie song he completed with Alva Noto and Martin Gore. Quirkily he cues it up, hits the start and sits intently listening as the emotionally layered track plays out to a close. It’s touching if a little surreal, but what more would you expect from such a singular artist? William Basinski – most definitely still doing it.
Find out more about the upcoming shows at ACCA here
The Attenborough Centre For Creative Arts, Friday 10th March 2023
Words by John Parry
Photos by Victor Frankowski
