| Basic | ||||
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| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | July 1984 | |||
| Recorded | December 1983 – May 1984 in New York City, New York, United States | |||
| Genre | Avant-garde | |||
| Length | 49:47 | |||
| Label | E.G. | |||
| Producer |
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| Robert Quine chronology | ||||
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Basic is a collaboration album by American musicians Robert Quine and Fred Maher, released in July 1984 by E.G. Records. Produced by the duo in Quine's living room, the record followed their tenure in Lou Reed's backing band, and provided Quine with a different working environment from the underground music scene of New York City, with which he had become disenchanted.
The record features ten instrumentals built around electric guitars, bass guitars and programmed drums. Simplicity was key to the recording, which was taped using a four-track recorder, with an emphasis on improvisation, texture, color and concise guitar and drum parts. The beats, largely programmed by Maher, are polyrhytmic in Latin and African styles, while Quine's guitar lines favour drones, inflection and a jagged phrasing. The latter used the album to incorporate a wide array of influences, including styles of blues, minimalism, psychedelia and country, and musicians such as Miles Davis, Scotty Moore and the Stooges. The ambient music of Brian Eno was also a large influence on the recording, particularly in its simplicity and use of analog delay and tape echo.
On release, Quine described Basic as the only recording of his which he enjoyed. The album praised by some music critics for its originality in vision, while others did not enjoy it. The album was later an inspiration on the Philadelphia-based guitarist Chris Forsyth, who recorded the album This Is BASIC (2024) in tribute to it. Basic was remastered and re-released in 1996 by Virgin Records.