BROOKLYN—A newly unsealed federal court transcript reveals that experimental composer William Basinski has allegedly spent decades selling his signature decaying tape loops to the Central Intelligence Agency for psychological operations. The legal proceedings began shortly after the artist announced his new album Passing The Cup Of Sorrows. Under intense cross-examination, government officials and musicologists detailed how ambient music plays a vital role in national security. The following transcript excerpt details the moment the prosecution linked the new album Passing The Cup Of Sorrows directly to global destabilization efforts.
Q: Mr. Basinski, you recently announced your new album Passing The Cup Of Sorrows. Is it true that track 1.1 contains subsonic frequencies designed to make foreign leaders cry in public?
A: I only wanted to capture the beauty of decay. The tape was dusty.
Q: Our audio experts at The RIAA analyzed the loop. The decay on the track matches the exact frequency of a mid-life crisis. Why did the Pentagon purchase 400 copies of this tape?
A: They told me they wanted to play it in the breakroom to lower morale. I did not know they would use it in the field.
Q: Let the record show the witness is visibly sweating. Let's move to your past work. The Disintegration Loops. Did you or did you not sell those master tapes to the Department of Defense to pacify entire sovereign nations?
A: It was a licensing deal. Everyone does licensing deals. Moby licensed his whole catalog to commercials. I licensed mine to the cold war.
Q: We have a statement from Gordon Flense, Deputy Undersecretary for Things That Were Fine Before. He claims your music single-handedly depressed the entire Eastern Bloc during the late nineties. How do you respond?
A: That was actually just a very damp autumn in Berlin. The tapes merely reflected the climate.
Q: And this new album, Passing The Cup Of Sorrows? You claim it is a solo piano record. But our agents found three distinct frequencies of existential dread hidden in the reverb.
A: That was just the room tone of my studio. It used to be a meatpacking plant. The sadness is baked into the drywall.
Q: So you admit the drywall of your studio is a weapon of mass depression?
A: I admit nothing. I only wanted to make people stare at wet windows.
At press time, the judge ordered a recess after the bailiff accidentally played a snippet of the new album and immediately began weeping over his childhood dog.
