Browse by Artist: NECKS, THE

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	Hanging Gardens
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS1

"Australian trio the Necks have caused a huge stir recently, creating ripples in the usually calm waters of improvised contemporary jazz. Their daring fusion of improvised jazz with chill-out dance music and minimalism has been hailed by the international music press, and with ten years of recording and playing live behind them, they have established a substantial following. With just acoustic piano, double bass, drums and the odd sample they have created their own unmistakable style. The method is simple; they start playing, and whatever it is they start with they just keep doing it, while any changes are only allowed to be gradual. It makes for a hypnotic dream-like experience, as if Miles Davis's In A Silent Way had been filtered through the minimalist concepts of Terry Riley and Phillip Glass, and then performed with more than half an ear towards ambient dance music."

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	Aether
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS2

"The Necks are an improvising post-jazz trio from Australia, whose music is about as far from New Orleans as you could imagine. It's jazz that has been stripped of all its excess, and been re-forged out of the belly of minimal trance club culture. Hanging Gardens used a single rhythm held for an hour, with sumptuous chords occasionally rising and falling at huge intervals. For the first 30 minutes of Aether they've gone even further; they've dropped the rhythm altogether, and what remains is just a single chord which emerges and then fades into nothing, again and again. There are just small variations on electric piano, bowed double bass and electronics. At the 35-minute point a high-pitched keyboard pattern gradually emerges, and imperceptibly the group swing in to a Steve Reich inspired interlocking pattern, which builds to a climax. It finally subsides into a series of hypnotic cymbal washes. The Necks are drummer Tony Buck, double bassist Lloyd Swanton and pianist Chris Abrahams. Their records and live concerts are all made using the same process; they start with an improvising idea, and then transform the material ever so slowly as each piece progresses. It's a devastatingly simple but original approach."

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	Drive By
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS3

"Hypnotic, sensuous, dream-like, enveloping, funky, seductive, subtle, credible -- Australian jazz trio The Necks have re-written all the rules. They are a (mostly) acoustic piano trio whose music sounds as much like ambient electronic dance music as it does like conventional jazz. But healthy doses of influence from R&B, Kraut Rock, The Doors, ethnic musics, Miles Davis and John Coltrane also abound. The Necks are drummer Tony Buck, double bassist Lloyd Swanton and pianist Chris Abrahams. Their records and live concerts are all made using the same process; they start with an improvising idea, and then transform the material ever so slowly. It's a devastatingly simple but original approach, which calls for extreme concentration from the players, but for the listener the experience is as fluid and profound and as meditating on a sunset or watching the ebb and flow of the ocean. Somehow with a seemingly effortless cool they charm the sounds out of their instruments."

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	The Boys
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS4

"The latest release by the extraordinary Australian improvising ambient/jazz trio, The Necks, is drawn from a soundtrack the group composed for the prize-winning Australian movie, The Boys. For the Necks this is a revolutionary move; gone are the hour-long shifting luminous improvisations which they have made their own special territory. Here you will find seven short-ish instrumentals, each developing a different sound and mood. The usual Neck's components (floating acoustic piano, anchoring double bass, and skimming drums are all present, but are set to very different tasks. There's a darkness absent from their other releases, and the CD ends with full-blown Joy Divisionish rock, with fuzzed up bass and heavy tribal drums. Along the way, The Necks expand on Erik Satie-like vignettes, tempered with electronic sounds and ambiences, insistent rhythms reminiscent of the Velvet Underground, and music and sounds that are subtly sensuous and extremely addictive."

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	Mosquito/See Through
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$24.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS5/6

"Another scorching, hypnotic, ground breaking, concept-expanding release from outstanding Australian trio The Necks. Their last few CDs have caused a huge stir. Hanging Gardens was a shimmering space age journey (fuelled by sparkling high hat patterns and lush piano chords), Aether was a profound meditation (on a chord that just kept on coming), while Drive By was a classic R&B road movie soundtrack. This new double CD re-writes the rules yet again. Mosquito begins with the scrunching sound of a hand drum with hanging rattles being draped over percussion, while a fragmentary high piano melody tinkles in the distance. These two elements persist for the entire hour of the CD, providing a supporting texture for the most gorgeous piano chord sequence you've ever heard, gently coaxed by a ride cymbal. There's a hint of Massive Attack's 'Protection' about these chords, which just repeat in an endless melancholy ecstasy. For Llloyd Swanton Mosquito is 'quite austere, but in a rewarding, refreshing way. I think it's one of the most rigorously minimalist pieces we've ever done.' Austere and rigorous it may be, in terms of its beautifully organised structure and economy of means; but don't be fooled. This record is seriously haunting and sensuous. See Through is another beast entirely. Taking its cue from the ultra minimalist Aether, it counter poses ripe piano chords and splashing cymbals (reminiscent of Alice Coltrane) against long passages of silence. Like Aether the music comes in waves, which suggest a vast scale and an open organic structure. But here the silences demand their own space, and the music operates as part of an environment, into which it constantly retreats and from which it endlessly re-appears."

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	Chemist
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS7

"This is the13th release from Australian maverick trio The Necks, now approaching their 20th Anniversary, and still occupying a genre-group of one. Their slow, gripping, development of a single idea over the length of a whole CD, while somehow obvious, has proved un-copyable, mostly because it so much depends on the unique musical personalities and extreme virtuosity of these three, profoundly different, musicians. Having established their theme, The Necks, with Chemist, break the habit of a lifetime and juxtapose three 20-minute tracks. Bassist Lloyd Swanton, pre-empting his critics, wrote: 'We just wanted to see what we could do by contrasting different aesthetics on a single CD. These pieces are calculatedly different, and the contrast is important.' Perhaps they were hoping with this minor scandal to draw attention away from the guitar, played by drummer Tony Buck, which features on all three tracks. Another major break with tradition? Our commercial department has, however, extensively road tested this departure from niche on a selection of fanatical Necks purists and, so far, it does seem to be working."

Artist:	NECKS, THE
Title:	Townsville
Label:	RECOMMENDED (UK)
Format:	CD
Price:	$17.00
Catalog #:	RER NECKS8

"For over two decades, The Necks have been stepping onto stages with absolutely nothing in mind, waiting for the first sound to happen and then following it through -- with glacial inevitability, and never any sudden shift of gear or introduction of new material -- for an hour or so. Never mechanical minimalism -- since each moment is invested with an intense presence. This is more a dense liquefaction of time; a form unique to The Necks; no one else has even tried to do it. It's a musical form the band evolved over more than 20 years of performing, and no two concerts are ever the same. Though many of their pieces open with, or eventually arrive at, some discernable groove, Townsville just floats in a state of suspension from beginning to end. It's like watching the ocean as wave follows wave: each the same; each different: asymmetric. Bassist Lloyd Swanton who, on this occasion, provided the motif that set Townsville in motion had no idea where it would lead: 'One of the deep joys for me' he said, 'after twenty years of making music with this group, is that we're still completely unable to predict where our pieces will go.' It's a paradox that makes the band addictive and keeps its music fresh. While there's an apparent inevitability that should shut the music down, somehow it seems always to remain open. It's never clear exactly how it's going to unfold."

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