Basinski himself often refers to The River as his favorite work to date and I can hear why. First released in a limited run on the Raster-Noton label back in 2002, this is the remastered 2008 re-release and it sounds amazing! Recorded back in the early eighties, The River is another composition based around recordings taken from shortwave radio transmissions. By adding lush synthesizer pads to the already alien sounds, the composition takes on an ethereal aspect. I doubt these sounds are actually meant to sound like a river or if the title is a metaphor for God knows what, but to these ears, the results are absolutely out-of-this-world and larger-than-life. Basinski's ambient tendencies are still here, but the shortwave noises make this listening experience a far more unsettling one than with his other works. The differences between both CDs are insignificant, yet the melody on the second CD sounds like it was reused on Disintegration Loop d|p 6.