A genre in itself. Despite all the attempts and fictions to somehow situate this Australian trio in a particular narrative or taxonomy, we still have no theoretical palette to contain their insularity other than to recognise this music invented by The Necks over almost four decades as such. It’s a triangular fabulation in which derivatives of jazz, minimalism, environmentalism, free improvisation and even rock pulse converge in the same movement. A feat that has been continuously and soberly purified since ‘Sex’ appeared in this world in 1989 from virtually no recognisable place or time. They are still around today. Formed in 1986 by Chris Abrahams on piano and organs, Tony Buck on drums and percussion and Lloyd Swanton on bass and double bass from Abrahams’ apparently simple but symbolically loaded question of “What if we just, you know, play music?”, The Necks have been trying to answer that question all this time through countless live appearances, a handful of recordings of those appearances, almost two dozen studio albums and a couple of soundtracks. An answer that has been reformulated in a logic that does not obey linear progression, based on absolute conduct and empathy in this triangulation, and always, always improvised.
When asked to play ‘Sex’ in a series of concerts dedicated to ‘classic albums’, Abrahams promptly declined with a ‘That’s not how we make music. It would make no sense.’ Proof of a process that, starting from essentially the same acoustic instrumentation – piano, drums and double bass – has allowed itself to be contaminated by some electronics or guitar and has always found ways to reinvent that same tattooed language from the start. A continuum, if you like, which has given rise – and here we can read the term in its deepest sense – to some of the most hypnotic digressions in living memory, embedded in discs such as the austere suspension of ‘Silent Night’, the repetitive jazzy inflections of ‘Piano Bass Drums’, the mysteries of ‘Chemist’ or the sketchy groove of ‘Three’, in pieces that generally amount to an hour or capitulate in three 20-minute moments. ‘Bleed’, released last year, continues this covertly simple magic, in what is one of their most atmospheric and patient recordings, where sparse and decisive piano notes are anchored in the slow movement of the bass and illuminate guitar and percussion textures. The same as always but always different? To semi-paraphrase John Peel’s mythical statement about The Fall. Let’s think instead of an open, infinite dialogue of which we are always fascinated to catch a few glimpses. A privilege. BS
