Famed Photographer William Eggleston Releases Debut Album, ‘Musik’

Today native Memphian William Eggleston, 78, who is widely regarded to be the most important photographer of the late 20th Century, has released his debut record, Musik. Produced by Numero Group co-founder Tom Lunt, Musik is available now on Secretly Canadian. We couldn’t be more thrilled to put this stunning, cerebral record out into the world.

We’re also excited to share that NPR Music has premiered the Rick Alverson-directed documentary, which you can watch here.

It was during Eggleston’s Sumner, Mississippi childhood, where he discovered the piano in the parlor that ignited in him a lifelong passion for music. It was a passion he carried forth his entire life, playing quite adeptly when a piano was handy. In the 1980s, Eggleston, who disdained digital cameras and modernity in general, became surprisingly fascinated with a synthesizer, the Korg OW/1 FD Pro, which had 88 piano-like keys, and in addition to being able to emulate the sound of any instrument, also contained a four-track sequencer that allowed him to expand the palette of his music, letting him create improvised symphonic pieces, stored on 49 floppy discs, encompassing some 60 hours of music from which this 13 track recording was assembled.

The music, which he refers to as “Musik,” adopting the German spelling of his hero, JS Bach, is highly emotional, whether he’s improvising a Bach-like organ fanfare out of whole cloth, using a Korg patch titled “guitar feedback” to create a dirge, or playing Lerner and Lowe’s “On The Street Where You Live” as a dramatic overture.