BASIC: This is BASIC
Guitarist Chris Forsyth has a new, almost undefinable project, with a nod to the past and a step into the future
I first saw BASIC June 8 at Tubby’s in Kingston. Well, it was a version of BASIC. Very few folks ever saw the trio that recorded the new album — Chris Forsyth, Nick Millevoi, and Mikel Patrick Avery — play this material. At Tubby’s, Avery and his percussion and electronics were missing. As a longtime Forsyth fan — the Philadelphia-based musician is my favorite guitarist, and always a mesmerizing force live — the new BASIC material was very different, and a bit difficult to get my head around that first night. I think I might have slightly offended him talking after the show about what was next, as he said something like, “No, this is the new thing.”
Fans of Forsyth have to get used to getting used to the new thing. I first met him in Brooklyn when he was playing with the difficult-listening group Peeesseye in 2002. Since then he has released a succession of impressive solo/or with the Solar Motel Band albums. 2014’s “Intensity Ghost” was something of a breakthrough, an eye-popping paean to Television, with his “I Ain’t Waiting” the centerpiece. As a fan, I just wanted to hear more Tom Verlaine-style histrionics after that, but Forsyth always swerves into another lane with each project. “The Rarity of Experience” and “Dreaming in the Non-Dream” each managed to top the previous release, with different impressive guitar technics, style, and songwriting. There were fewer direct Television references, but the influences there and from Richard Thompson and others can be heard. “Have We Mistaken the Bottle for the Whiskey Inside” is my favorite anti-Donald Drumpf song ever, the rare time when Forsyth adds vocals, here with the perfect political metaphor.
The next two albums, 2019’s “All Time Present” and 2022’s “Evolution Here We Come” continued to add to the compelling argument that Forsyth is one of this generation’s greats. “Experimental & Professional,” though instrumental, still seems like the appropriate anthem for me to appropriate for myself. It fucking rocks!
Which brings us to BASIC. The group is named after an obscure record from 1984 put out by underground New York legends, guitarist Robert Quine and drummer Fred Maher. The record was full of programmed drums, ambient drift, and guitar explorations, and completely out-of-step with what was then considered cool. Quine said in 1997, “On Basic, the drums are too loud and this and that but that's the way I wanted it…. If people don't appreciate the damn thing, I have no interest in banging my head against the wall.” You get the feeling Forsyth, Millevoi, and Avery have the same attitude, even if the sound is different.
I saw BASIC again two weeks ago (see video of much of “Nerve Time” above), and the lineup was different again. Millevoi had bailed on the project, and Doug McCombs was sitting in instead. McCombs is another longtime hero of mine. I first saw him in Chicago in 1995, when, after living in Florida 12 years, I bought a thrift store coat and went to see him play bass with Tortoise at the Empty Bottle on a very cold night. Over the last few years, he has been playing often with Forsyth, so I have seen him several times, and here in Queens, at a free show in a park, organized annually by Oneida, they were locked in again. “Nerve Time” is probably my favorite on the new record, but there are points when “For Stars of the Air,” “Positive Halfway,” “Versatile Switch,” or “New Auspicious” are playing, and I have to look up to figure out what I am hearing. Like me, you may not fully understand this album at first, but repeat plays are very rewarding. The Bandcamp page for this album is here.