William Basinski – “O, My Daughter, O, My Sorrow”

William Basinski – “O, My Daughter, O, My Sorrow”

The experimental composer William Basinski is famous for making richly haunting and ominous soundscapes. He’s best-known for The Disintegration Loops, a four-volume series constructed from the decaying tapes of his own older music, and his pieces always seem to carry some flickering ghosts of the past. This fall, Basinski is coming back with a new album called Lamentations.

Basinski used tape loops from his archives — some going back as far as 1979 — to create Lamentations. Basinski has shared one new piece, a dark and hypnotic song called “O, My Daughter, O, My Sorrow.” The track lasts nearly seven minutes, and most of it is the same ambient synth figure, repeated again and again. Towards the end, we hear spectral additions, like a sample of an opera singer whose voice seems just out of reach. Check out “O, My Daugher, O, My Sorrow” and the Lamentations tracklist below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “For Whom The Bell Tolls”
02 “The Wheel Of Fortune”
03 “Paradise Lost”
04 “Tear Vial”
05 “O, My Daughter, O, My Sorrow”
06 “Passio”
07 “Punch And Judy”
08 “Silent Spring”
09 “Transfiguration”
10 “All These Too, I, I Love”
11 “Please, This Shit Has Got To Stop”
12 “Fin”

Lamentations is out 11/13 on Temporary Residence.

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