Biography
There are two or more artists going under the alias "Basic Unit".
1) Basic Unit is Rick Dallaway and Ben England, UK Drum and Bass artists with 12"s out on Audio Couture, Flex and Deepest Cut. These two guys formed Basic Unit and debuted on Moving Shadow in 1997. They also moved on Nocturnal, a cult label that reached beyond D&B to platform some more experimental sounds. It was a short-lived label with some ominous footnotes — 'Several people involved with Nocturnal have vanished or are dead' reads the label's Discogs description.
But in 1998 Nocturnal put out "Timeline", a CD-only album from Basic Unit that cut a sharp, scathing figure against most D&B of the era. England and Dallaway embraced the album format as a chance to go deep, inhaling their inspiration from early days Autechre as much as Source Direct and boiling down the results to a steely, minimalist framework. Simply an album that's as confrontational and desolate as it can get.
As recently as 2025, "Timeline" got reissued on Sneaker Social Club, alongside them releasing a new EP "Redux" in the same year.
2) Another group of artists going by the name Basic Unit is Yair Etziony (Vermont) and Shlomi Avni (DJ Sola). They've been pioneers in the Israeli electronic scene since 2001 with the Micoropeople collective. In 2005 they joined forces to become Basic Unit. Their new creation fusing influences from Detroit techno to German and US-house. Alongside the like-minded Tubi and M1 crew, they initiated the Exercise parties that became the taste maker night for minimal club music in the city. Exercise guests include international artists as Sebo K, Jens Bond, P.toile and Tom Clark.
Shlomi Avni (DJ Sola) was born 1974 in Givaatim, Israel. He started DJing in 2001, and since then has played the most ground-breaking and important venues for electronic music in Israel. In the year 2003 he opened, and managed a new night club, Hatzofe.
For the year it ran, the club changed Israel nightlife, forever. Over the years he has had the privilege of playing alongside the likes of: Anja Schinder (Mobillee), Phonique (Poker Flat), Frank Muller (Beroshima), Dave DK (mood music), Losoul (Playhouse), James Flavor (Dirt crew),Tyree Cooper (DJ International), L.A. Williams (chisel), Apparat (Shitkatapult), Jens bond (poker flat) and Paul Kalkbrenner (bpitch control).His music ranges from deep and minimal house to electro, acid and pumping tech-house.
Yair Etziony (Vermont) was born 1975 in Petach Tiqwa, Israel. Has been DJing for five years now playing successful local and international gigs and venues - including Dinamo Dvash, Fetish, Sofa beat, NBI (Berlin), Boom Festival (Portugal) to name a few .
In 2004 he released an electronica album on UK imprint Neo Ouija (Norken’s label) titled “The End of Tel Aviv” which was a fusion of old DX7 textures and digital beats.
Two years ago, Yair started to digitally perform his music and has had shows in all of the major galleries, museums and art exhibitions in Tel Aviv. He also put up an event celebrating digital music and art gathering artists from both Israel and Europe titled Laptopia.
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