A Shadow in Time
by William Basinski
User Score
7.5

Generally favorable reviews- based on 15 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 12 out of 15
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 15
  3. Negative: 1 out of 15
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  1. Tool46x2
    Oct 20, 2021
    9
    Standing on a 16th floor apartment balcony buried in the middle of the city. It's late and you see the alleyway stretching out , low and away. You can almost see until the end of it (where it meets the street). You notice the fog and how it creates a monochrome effect through sharp contrasts... pitch black shadows, street lamps trying their hardest.

    Just as you start to get lost in    Standing on a 16th floor apartment balcony buried in the middle of the city. It's late and you see the alleyway stretching out , low and away. You can almost see until the end of it (where it meets the street). You notice the fog and how it creates a monochrome effect through sharp contrasts... pitch black shadows, street lamps trying their hardest.

    Just as you start to get lost in the scenery you can hear something in the distance... echoing up the alley as the unaware sleep... It's an instrument... definitely a saxophone.

    It perfectly complements the numb feeling connecting you to the landscape. Everything is below you.

    For once, the dense landscape is still enough for it to resonate to your core.... sweeping you into it's wake as the faint notes you hear in the distance elevate above tires spinning like gentle jets... it all melts and you allow it. For 30 minutes it is easier... much easier... to accept not only where you are but the entire arc... from it's vulnerable beginnings to right where you stand... the city spins around you, the world disappears...

    The music stops.
    Traffic continues.
    The sun will eventually rise.
    A tired man drifts back
    Hoping his dreams will be at least sixteen stories high...
    Basinski in the basement.    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

59
#59 Best Album of 2017

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
84

Universal acclaim - based on 14 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 14
  2. Mixed: 0 out of 14
  3. Negative: 0 out of 14
  1. Exclaim
    Feb 21, 2017
    90
    It's a piece that Basinski apparently revisited and refined throughout 2016, a year made monumental by its cultural losses--and it's one of his very best.
    Read full review
  2. Magnet
    Feb 14, 2017
    85
    Basinski has proven remarkably capable at existing far outside of his own legacy, his uncanny ability to wring entire worlds from his famously deep tape archives proving more remarkable with each subsequent release. A Shadow In Time is no exception. [No. 139, p.53]
  3. The Wire
    Jan 27, 2017
    80
    While the Bowie tribute will probably garner most attention--hey, at least it saves Basinski having to explain the story behind Disintegration Loops again--for me, “A Shadow In Time” is the more absorbing work. [Feb 2017, p.44]
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