William Basinski (born 1958 in Houston, Texas) is an American composer, clarinetist, saxophonist, and sound & video artist. Born 1958 to a Polish-American father and a German-American mother. A classically trained clarinetist, he studied jazz saxophone and composition at North Texas State University in the late 70?s. 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. He developed his meditative, melancholy style experimenting with short looped melodies played against themselves creating feedback loops. His first release was Shortwavemusic. Although created in 1983, it was first released on vinyl in a small edition in 1998 by Carsten Nicolai's Raster-Noton label. This was followed by Watermusic, released in 2000 on 2062. Another 2 disc major work which preceded the shortwavemusic studies was Variations: A Movement in Chrome

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