Chris Forsyth has an unusually specific inspiration for his group BASIC: Basic, an obscure album of oddball electronic rhythms and supremely wobbly guitar released in 1984 by Lou Reed collaborators Robert Quine and Fred Maher. Long out of print and circulation, but traded like a secret handshake among record heads, Basic is a one-of-one record: Listening to it on vinyl, one may wonder, Hang on, is this playing at the right speed?
Discovering their mutual affection for the album, Forsyth and guitarist Nick Millevoi—bandmates in the exploratory, guitar-centric Solar Motel Band—recruited Natural Information Society percussionist and drum-machine wrangler Mikel Patrick Avery and founded BASIC, the most self-evident band name ever, and released their debut album, This is BASIC. It’s a blast of a record, wonky and crammed with quixotic riffs. But though you can still hear the woozy Quine/Maher influence on BASIC, their new self-titled outing showcases a group that’s bloomed fully into its own thing, thanks to live shows that have expanded the depth and parameters of the project, as well as a crucial injection of new blood.
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Millevoi has since departed, making way for Doug McCombs of Tortoise and Brokeback, his signature six-string Fender Bass VI in tow. And he’s not the only bassist in the mix: Double bassist John Moran joins in to offer low-end counterpoint on four of the seven songs. Recorded live over two days at Electrical Audio in Chicago, BASIC was largely improvised. The result is an album that retains the bristling energy of the band’s debut but yet feels refreshingly loose.
Opener “Premonition” sets the more meditative tone, employing sheets of delayed acoustic guitars over a clopping lope and programmed rhythms. It’s immediately clear that the new iteration of BASIC is a more spacious one—dubbier, more blissed out, and altogether roomier. This new sense of balance is evident on “Index of Memories,” a transportive tone poem anchored by a supple bass drone and motorik beat, and one of the prettiest epics in Forsyth’s catalog. Forsyth’s guitar lead brings to mind Television’s romantic prog-punk tangles or Sonny Sharrock at his most centered, with Avery’s looped flute accentuating the melancholy melody.
Thankfully, BASIC still make primo hypno-rock, too. “Brutalist with Filigree” opens with a steady thump of upright bass, vamping for a minute and a half before Forsyth introduces a gnarly, fuzz-toned riff, all implied menace and bravado—pure guitar-nerd noir. Similarly, “It Ignites” crackles, pairing staccato stabs of guitar and dubby echoes, samples triggered by hand. The result sounds like Andy Summers and Lee “Scratch” Perry making a highlife LP.
But even when BASIC shift into heavier mode, the material here prizes a fresh sense of restraint. On closer “Union Pool Melody,” the trio does a blissed-out longform jam not far removed from its Hoboken neighbors Yo La Tengo, accentuating languid drifts of guitar and bass bombs over a trance-inducing fusion of spiritual jazz and indie rock. BASIC may have begun life as a tribute to Quine and Maher’s one-off, but on BASIC, the trio establishes a hypnotic, groove-rooted identity all its own.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
