JAMMING INSTRUMENTAL ELECTRO, BASIC BRING FUTURISM, FREAKY SHIT AND HITS TO THE BODY
IN THE late ’90s, guitarist Chris Forsyth was digging through the racks of famed St Mark’s Place record shop Kim’s Underground when he found Robert Quine and Fred Maher’s 1984 album Basic. A fan of Quine’s guitar work with The Voidoids and Matthew Sweet, he took the album home, only to discover it sounded like neither.
“It has a lot in common with Eno’s stuff,” explains Forsyth, leader of Philadelphia’s Solar Motel Band. “It’s kind of an ambient record but it has the beats, and the guitar playing is just sublime. It’s also odd because it was largely rejected by the people who liked Quine’s guitar playing.”