Review Summary: "Some people are comfortable in their skin, and I guess I wasn’t. I didn’t realize how cute I was and how much power that kind of beauty has. I used to feel like a freak".- William Basinski
One of the most appreciable features of William Basinski's work is his pessimism, sorrow, and anguish in the face of a world that offers no security, but also shows an individually creative path of making oneself, despite all circumstances. This specific album demonstrates a provocative attitude towards human insecurity derived from the crisis of an existence that seeks prosperity in a world full of misery.
This album is not to be confused as a work of rational inquiry, but it is to be recognized as the very nature of man as existence.
The man who does not reflect on himself does not actualize the proper unity of his personality, but remains anonymous and renounces his freedom, which is limited only to the choice of recognizing his limitations, failures, and sins.
Basinski then understands the duty of human beings to express themselves through art as a path to self-reflection with the aim of understanding life. The decision lies, then, in the norm of the constitution of man in his authenticity through self-reflection.
...On Reflection is thus defined not as a scientific inquiry that turns out to be indifferent and objective, but it is the search that the singular individual makes of what makes him feel alive, whether it's a bird, wind breeze, rain, or in short, the search for anything that presents him with a choice against which human beings must decide to suspend their prejudices and appropriate what reaffirms their personality.
For Kierkegaard, for instance, the single individual creates his relationship with his own existence. The individual brings his subjectivity into connection with what he is. Not only that, but he turns inward and engages in self-reflection, and he finally becomes authentic.
Following this reasoning, if the existence of any individual is summarized in order to highlight its decisive moments, the impression we receive could not be more fantastic. The critical moments of each person's life have a completely different meaning from those experienced in the life of any other person, whether due to differences in age, sex, gender, culture, language, and so on. Well, at this time, human existence does nothing but oscillate and confuse everything. William fights back with an intense yet softer piano-based loop, very similar to "The Garden of Brokenness" or "Cascade".
Of course, it didn't take much time for William to understand the need for a passionate transformation, and so, he found it through the Disintegration Loops. Figuring out what existence is for you is part of what existence is. Life is not the result of any logical argument, because there is no calculation, no premises, no graphs, no equations, and no experiments in your daily life choices. Your reasons for believing something are entirely subjective and intimate. You have privileged access to such reasons by an act of self-awareness and self-reflection. No one has, and will never have, access to your innermost thoughts. I am talking about topics that are based on subjective dialogue and Basinski has created the perfect cloudy and rainy environment for every single one of us to engage in such dialogues. In sum, a breath of fresh air in today's robotic landscape. As a psychologist, I can't wait to use this in therapeutic settings.
