WILLIAM BASINSKI+ KUUMA

William Basinski is a classically trained musician and composer who has been working in experimental media for over 30 years in NYC and most recently, California. Employing obsolete technology and analog 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 Media. The Temporary Residence deluxe LP box-set reissue from 2012 was awarded best re-issue of the year and a score of 10 on Pitchfork. Installations and films made in collaboration with artist-filmmaker, James Elaine have been presented in festivals and museums internationally, and his concerts are presented to sold-out crowds around the world. Basinski was chosen by Music Director, Antony Hegarty to create music for the Robert Wilson opera, The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic which had its world premiere at the Manchester International Festival in July 2011 and toured Europe in 2012 and North America in 2013. 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, Dark Mofo Festival in Hobart Tasmania, and most recently Pitchfork Midwinter Festival with the Chicago Philharmonic. Basinski is currently touring the world in support of his latest work, "On Time Out of Time" which was released on March 8th, 2019 on Temporary Residence/2062/USA.

Kuuma is the data-borne persona of Detroit-based artist and producer Adam Francis Cuthbert. Created in 2012 as a combination of original character, gaming handle, and artistic pseudonym for Cuthbert’s experimental electroacoustic music, Kuuma’s visage and character have been developed through a decade of album releases on the slash sound label, and through permutations by online visual artists. With orchestration by way of “modular synths, field recordings, and a trumpet-like liquid gold” (An Earful’s Best Electronic of 2021), the sometimes spare, sometimes brutal sonic environments comprising Cuthbert’s Kuuma project draw inspiration from the flow-state experience of open-world video games, evoking descriptions such as an “eerie dreamscape” (Alex Ross, The New Yorker), a” laidback sound world that was ten minutes of shimmering pleasure” (Musical America) and “can only be described in terms of its arresting atmospherics” (NPR’s First Listen). As a composer, mix engineer, and record producer, Cuthbert has worked in myriad creative roles with the Bang on a Can All-Stars, Kronos Quartet, Friction Quartet, Todd Reynolds, and John Adler, amassing artistic credits in the recording catalogs of Ghostly International, 7K! Records, and Cantaloupe Music. They have appeared throughout DIY club circuits of New York City and Detroit with their bands I-R and skullcap5050, and on the Long Play Festival, Festival of New Trumpet, Third Place Music Festival, and Noise Engineering’s Noiseblast Hour series. Their sound works for dance and theater have been performed at The Asia Society, La MaMa Moves Festival, Roulette Intermedium, and the New York Theatre Workshop.