William James Basinski[1] (born June 25, 1958) is an American avant-garde composer based in Los Angeles, California.

[5] He was raised in a Catholic family,[6] and states that he had his first "really mystical, wonderful, magical" musical experiences as an infant at Houston's St. Anne Church.

[5] A classically trained clarinetist, Basinski studied jazz saxophone and composition at the University of North Texas in the late 1970s.

[3] Throughout the 1980s, Basinski created a vast archive of experimental works using tape loop and delay systems, found sounds, and shortwave radio static.

While attempting to salvage the recordings in a digital format, the tapes slowly crumbled and left a timestamp history of their demise.