Philadelphia, PA · art rock · trance jazz · experimental

BASIC

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Guitarist Chris Forsyth's rhythm-forward trio — drum machines, samplers, and hypnotic guitars locking into boundary-less art-rock trance, Krautrock patience with a jammer's payoff.

BASIC is a project led by Chris Forsyth, a Philadelphia guitarist known for long-form, repetition-driven playing and for his work with the Solar Motel Band. He founded BASIC in 2022, naming it after a 1984 Robert Quine and Fred Maher record and after his own wish to strip his playing back to rhythmic and musical fundamentals.

Drummer Mikel Patrick Avery, also based in Philadelphia, joined soon after, bringing a mix of programmed beats and acoustic percussion run through self-built electronic processors. His other work includes Natural Information Society, Marshall Allen's Ghost Horizons and Rob Mazurek's Exploding Star Orchestra. Chicago's Douglas McCombs, of Tortoise and Brokeback, joined in late 2024, playing Fender Bass VI, a six-string bass tuned an octave below guitar.

The music works from extended riffs and modal vamps, building slowly through interlocking guitar, drum-machine and sampler parts rather than conventional song structures, with roots in Krautrock, American rock guitar traditions and downtown experimental music, layered with Tuareg rhythms, funk, dub and highlife.

Their debut record was This Is BASIC, followed by a self-titled album for No Quarter that adds double bassist John Moran, known for his work in Bark Culture and the Daniel Villareal Trio, to four tracks.

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art rocktrance jazzexperimental