Mix together trunk-thick grooves, deep, detailed and fat production, complemented by tiny sound effects and Far-East atmospheres and themes, and you get BASIC.
BASIC is a 25 years old Dutch producer who operates within the framework of instrumental hiphop, afro breakbeats and down tempo electronica. In other words, one could say he is heavily into detailed drum work, deep-space strings, intricate 60's and 70's jazz kinetics, [Far] Eastern and 'ethno' themes and melodies, tinkling sound effects... Oh well! Others tend to compare his sound with the likes of Four Tet, Amon Tobin and Bonobo.
"I can clearly remember that day in high school, when my tutor - I was 13 years old back then - asked me to come in and tell about my plans for my future profession. I told him I wanted to be a producer, without really knowing what that supposed to be. In those days, I was a big fan of the Wu Tang Clan and their sound, and I knew the RZA was their producer."
BASIC started making beats and sounds around his tenth; using Windows Sound Recorder for copy-pasting samples he recorded from Chinese folk tapes and American funk recordings. This software was by far not convenient, and in 1995 [at age 14] he assembled a group of musicians, told them what kind of loops they had to play, and rented a studio to record all material on multi track. This delivered him his first demo tape recording, on which he also featured as a rapper. Besides that, BASIC got in touch with the owner of another studio. This man offered him the keys of his private workspace, so that BASIC was allowed to come and work on his own projects every weekend. "He gave me access to all the equipment he had assembled during the years," BASIC explains, "and the best part was, he just made me figure it all out for myself. Therefore, I was really allowed to learn something. It was a slow and sometimes frustrating process, but I learned that I was very sure about wanting to get along with this stuff."
BASIC delivered a debut album in which the chronological flow of the tracks is of a great importance. It narrates the period after a stormy episode in which personal relations took up most of his energy. "Do you know a word that means both look at me and leave me alone" -> this sentence, from an album liner notes by saxophonist Masayoshi Urabe, formed the leading thread running through the process of producing his debut CD.
In his own words, the music on his album is about the ambiguous emotions that occur with extreme, unhealthy love for another person. In musical terms, he approaches this with a trunk-thick groove as the basis. His partiality to Eastern atmospheres and themes complements his characteristic sound.
BASIC's style is defined by moody, compelling beats that are driven by a bouncy hiphop force. As a producer operating within this framework, he is aware not to step in the pitfall of tediousness. BASIC has a clever and deceptive way of extending the groovy sub layers of his style towards heavily detailed, deep and organic music. The variation between the tracks on his album is the key that keeps his listeners occupied. The elaborate, elusive eloquence of 'Do you know the word' reveals itself more and more after each turn in your stereo set.
In his live performances, BASIC is known for his hypnotically grooving sets, which instantly get the audience moving. He has played on numerous renown Dutch musical festivals and venues.
There are a number of live recordings and bonus mp3s available through http://www.humanworkshop.com
# wj is a contributing author