BASIC at the Raccoon Motel -- September 27.
Sunday, September 27, 6 p.m.
Raccoon Motel, 315 East Second Street, Davenport IA
With the artist delivering what Pitchfork calls "a near-perfect balance between '70s rock tradition and present-day experimentation," Chris Forsyth brings his new project BASIC to Davenport's Raccoon Motel on September 27, the guitarist performing in this collective rock trio alongside Mikel Patrick Avery on percussion, electronics, and drum machine, and Douglas McCombs on Fender Bass VI.
Hailed by the New York Times as "a scrappy and mystical historian" whose "music humanizes the element of control in rock classicism (and) turns it into a woolly but disciplined ritual," Forsyth connects the dots between between art rock, chiming atmospherics, and motorik precision. His taut compositions and mercurial improvisations have earned the Philadelphia-based guitarist a unique reputation as a leading stylist on the instrument, inspiring NPR Music to label Forsyth "one of rock’s most lyrical guitar improvisors."
As stated at First-Avenue.com, Forsyth "founded BASIC in 2022, naming the project in homage to the 1984 Robert Quine/Fred Maher album Basic, yes, but also to indicate a desire to get down to fundamentals rhythmically and musically. Shortly thereafter, fellow Philly denizen Mikel Patrick Avery, whose subtle and propulsive drumming has provided the pulse for Natural Information Society, Marshall Allen’s Ghost Horizons, and Rob Mazurek’s Exploding Star Orchestra (amongst other projects), joined, bringing his unique combination of programed beats and acoustic percussion – a single drum with a metallic bell affixed and a variety of hand percussion run through a self-devised barrage of electronic processors and tonal filters (many controlled in real-time with touch pads) – to BASIC. Chicago stalwart Douglas McCombs came on board in late 2024 to tour their debut record, This Is BASIC, thereby solidifying the lineup and expanding the group’s sound. As often heard in his work with Tortoise and Brokeback, McCombs’ playing in BASIC combines a mastery of musical negative space with memorable lines on Fender Bass VI, a six-string instrument with a distinctive twang tuned an octave below a standard guitar, allowing McCombs to function as both bassist and guitarist.
"BASIC’s Basic concept is groove-based, full of space and sonic fields both evocatively ancient and bracingly contemporary. It is a truly collective product with Forsyth, Avery, and McCombs balancing individual expression with surrender to the group. On Basic, the result is entrancing and, if not 'non-idiomatic' then something approaching pan-idiomatic. While still containing nods to Forsyth’s taut playing on BASIC’s debut, and the disciplined restraint of McCombs’s work with Tortoise, Avery’s presence ties everything into a subtly evolving rhythmic grid that has little precedent in rock music. He weaves programmed beats and understated drumming into an overarching processed swirl that’s truly at the heart of the group, allowing Forsyth and McCombs to explore rhythmic counterpoint and new stained-glass tonal landscapes. Most exciting, perhaps, is the potential for a new renaissance of electro-acoustic groove music that fuses non-Western rhythmic boil with acid-psych moves and funky harmolodics that electrify both the body and the deepest neural pathways, and plays with the boundaries between art, technology, and boogie."
BASIC headlines their Davenport engagement on September 27, admission to the 6 p.m. concert is $26.45, and more information and tickets are available by visiting TheRaccoonMotel.com.
