William Basinski has returned to solo piano composition for his first album since 2022’s Janek Schaefer collaboration …On Reflection and first solo LP in six years. Passing the Cup of Sorrows consists of a single 40-minute work, part of which, titled “Passing the Cup of Sorrows 1.1,” is excerpted below. The album arrives October 23.
The title, a press release notes, is taken from “a hypnotherapy concept known as ‘Life Between Lives,’ where two souls who shared a tumultuous or destructive relationship on Earth undergo a purge and reconcile in the spirit world.”
The new record’s predecessor was the similarly cheerful 2020 LP Lamentations; in the interim, Basinski has also overseen the reissue of his ambient opus The Disintegration Loops.
