This is KEY

Few understood Basic when it came out and even fewer liked it. By 1984, Robert Quine was already legendary for his guitar work in Richard Hell and the Voidoids. Empty generation and Lydia Lunch's Queen of Siam. He had recorded several albums with Lou Reed, whom he loved and hated in equal measure, and with whom he constantly clashed. The notoriously controversial Quine had spent his time in the New York underground and was tired of being sidelined by his outsized personalities. He decided to team up with Reed's drummer Fred Maher and create a record just the way he liked it: a strange mix of programmed drums, ambient drift and delightful guitar explorations. These sounds were outrageous at the time, but quickly became dated. Quinn didn't care. “On Basicthe drums are too loud and this and that, but that's how I wanted it,” he said he said in 1997. “If people don't appreciate the damn thing, I have no interest in banging my head against the wall.”

According to Philadelphia guitarist Chris Forsyth, everyone's got it wrong. He places Quine in the company of Miles Davis, Brian Eno and Joni Mitchell and compares Basic on their landmark albums. Quine and Maher's overlooked record has influenced Forsyth's music for years, apparently in the 20-minute guitar workout.Techno Top” from 2019 Ever present. But he wasn't as alone as he thought – a resurgence of interest in Quine's work was underway and he was delighted to discover that Solar Motel Band guitarist Nick Millevoi was also a fan. During the pandemic lockdown, Forsyth and Millevoi met with a drum machine, using Basic as a conceptual starting point for double-guitar jams. They quickly discovered that the collaboration made sense even to people who didn't know about Robert Quine. And so they recruited a percussionist, Mikel Patrick Avery of the Natural Information Society, and formed a band. In honor of their seminal text, they named it BASIC.

Here are the basics of a This is KEY Song: polyrhythmic drum programming a bit too high in the mix, like Quine would do. Avery's percussion adding a steady groove. Millevoi's thundering baritone guitar. and Forsyth's leaden lines ring overhead. When they play live, Avery sits behind a bass drum, cowbell and shaker, flanked by two guitarists. Everyone can always see each other. this friendly surveillance is necessary for the semi-enhancer of the band. On “For Stars of the Air,” the album's sprawling, nine-minute opener, Forsyth adds ringing harmonies over the jittery hi-hat of the drum machine until Millevoi enters with tremulous waves of baritone, allowing Forsyth to move into a complex , flange – out solo. Only after this interplay is established does Avery complicate the tempo, pushing the group forward in double time. Once two players lock into a pattern, the third is free to wander until he finds a new fixation, and so each piece can change direction with a nod or a mutual glance: We got this, be on your way.