Konkord 143
Don't Trust The Night
The Base
Only a few bands can look back on a career as long and productive as that of Graz-based trio The Base. Formed in 1989, since then hundreds of live performances across Europe. Sixteen record releases, including eleven studio albums. And a remarkable musical evolution: while many rock bands tend to decline over the course of their careers, The Base seem to get better and better. In fact, Norbert Wally, Albrecht Klinger, and Karlheinz Miklin Jr. have already created a monumental body of work that stands on par with the catalogues of equally enduring contemporaries such as Calexico, Teenage Fanclub, or Wilco. And they consistently maintain that high standard, delivering excellent new material almost every two years.
This quality standard applies just as much in the studio as it does on stage. On any kind of stage. With the same ease The Base please crowds of thousands, they create an intimate, deeply emotional concert experience in small venues. Their great art lies not simply in reproducing the songs perfected in the studio, but in creating them anew within the given atmosphere. Their third live album, “Don’t Trust The Night,” once again illustrates this art in an impressive way.
Live recording No. 1 (“Toasted At T.i.B.”) was a highly successful contribution to the “unplugged” trend of the time in 2002. Then, in 2018, a full jazz orchestra expanded the Austrian power trio into a truly spectacular show band (“The Big Base Band”). And by 2025, some of their well over 100 songs had once again undergone a remarkable development. On the small stage of Vienna’s Radiokulturhaus, accompanied by singer Miriam Bichler and keyboardist Gunther Schuller, an amazing band unfolds a wonderfully refined new version of itself.
The entire magic of that evening is captured on two LPs, set to be released in June 2026 to mark the band’s 30th anniversary as recordings artists.