Working with guitars, drum machine, sampler, self-built electronics, and all manner of percussion, BASIC, the trio of Chris Forsyth, Mikel Patrick Avery, and Douglas McCombs, synthesize the vast influences and distinct histories of each member, producing a boundary-less, rhythm-forward amalgam of art rock, trance jazz, collective improvisation, and humming electronics on their new eponymous full-length, out June 12, 2026 on No Quarter.

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.