SAN FRANCISCO
William Basinski
Honoring 25 years of his ambient masterpiece The Disintegration Loops
and Purelink
Thursday, May 13, 2027
Grace Cathedral
7pm (doors) 8pm (performance)
All ages
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Reflections presents composer William Basinski in a live laptop performance of his iconic work The Disintegration Loops. Assembled from decaying tapes in September 2001, it’s become an elegy for the lost, shrouded in time and mystery.
Electronic trio Purelink opens, whose aqueous instrumentals conjure worlds of beauty and texture. We’ll hold the ceremony in a magnificent cathedral, bathed in stunning, projection-mapped light, transforming the space ― and ourselves.
The Disintegration Loops
Undoubtedly an iconic artefact of its era, The Disintegration Loops is an enduring aesthetic touchstone. It didn't exist in a vacuum when it appeared in the early '00s, as the dust settled after 9/11, but Basinski's prescient meditation on decay in the wake of tragedy felt like a musical mark in the sand ― a body of work that changed the way we think about repetition and tape saturation.
The story goes that the composer, who'd been recording loop-based, minimalist experiments since the '70s, inspired by Brian Eno's Discreet Music and Steve Reich's It's Gonna Rain, was going through his archive of reel-to-reel tapes when he realised the ferrite was flaking away from the plastic. Not willing to give up on the material, he recorded the output, letting the tape head destroy his pieces irreparably and adding reverb to the output.
Now, this would have been interesting enough without the additional context, but Basinski finished The Disintegration Loops on the morning of September 11, 2001, and played the first piece to his friends as they sat on the roof of his apartment block, watching agape as events unfolded. He used the footage he shot at the time for the covers of each disc, and the suite's solemn, thoughtful decline served as the unofficial soundtrack of our collective grief, an unfussy reminder of tragedy that plays out its haunted remnants of the past until they die, quite literally.
There's been plenty of music that's aped Basinski's method since, and we don't doubt there'll be plenty more, but there's nothing quite like the original, and this latest remaster is the definitive version. ― via Boomkat
William Basinski
WILLIAM BASINSKI is a classically trained composer who has been working in experimental media for over 30 years in NYC and most recently, California.
Employing obsolete technology and analogue tape loops, his haunting and melancholy soundscapes explore the temporal nature of life and resound with the reverberations of memory and the mystery of time. His epic 4-disc masterwork, The Disintegration Loops, received international critical acclaim and was chosen as one of the top 50 albums of 2004 by Pitchfork.
Basinski was chosen by music director Antony Hegarty to score the Robert Wilson opera, The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic. Orchestral transcriptions of The Disintegration Loops by Maxim Moston have been performed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Queen Elizabeth Hall and La Batie Festival in Geneva, Switzerland. With Preston Wendel he released a jazz-inflected LP under the name Sparkle Division, with special guests such as the late Henry Grimes on upright bass. In March 2022 the album “. . on reflection” by William Basinski & Janek Schaefer was released by Temporary Residence, Ltd.
Purelink
PURELINK is an electronic trio formed in 2020, consisting of Millia, kindtree, & Concave Reflection. They’ve amassed a loving fanbase worldwide for their fusion of influences, including speaker-knocking contemporary bass music, dub, and classic chillout IDM soundscapes.
Their 2023 album Signs, on the innovative Peak Oil imprint, has catapulted them into the hearts and minds of even more fans the world over. 2026’s Faith, also released on Peak Oil, includes memorable vocal features from Loraine James of Hyperdub Records.
Racking up numerous gig appearances with fellow innovators Huerco S and Tirzah in addition to memorable sets at Sustain-Release, Purelink have honed their improvisational live sets to bring around the world ― always evolving and orbiting their unique and heartwarming core.
Grace Cathedral
Nestled in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighborhood, Grace Cathedral was designed by architect Lewis Hobart in the French Gothic style and is the third largest Episcopal cathedral in the nation. The use of raw concrete and steel for the cathedral fabric is daring and unusual, but the 1906 earthquake made structural strength necessary. The building is an ADA accessible space.
1100 California St, San Francisco, CA 94108
© Reflections 2026. In time, out of time ☀︎