The Necks - Unfold
The Quietus
Australian trio The Necks exist in a nebulous, spectral realm at the crossroads between free improv, jazz and a deconstructed form of rock’n’roll that is most remarkable because, like their neighbours (of hundreds of miles away in New Zealand) The Dead C, they do so in a way that is instantly identifiable and constantly questing for new ideas.
Over their last few albums, such as Open and Vertigo (both essential listening), they’ve taken their concept to radical heights on album-length tracks that progress in minute detail and with surprising twists and turns throughout. On the aptly-named Unfold, however, they’ve gone in a different direction, coming up with four side-long pieces instead of the now-traditional one. It’s different, daring, and, fortunately for the trio’s fans, effective.
On Open and Vertigo, the single pieces evolved organically across several stages, with each instrument (drums, bass, piano) responding to the others and trading places in the limelight. The more compact nature of Unfold means that each track becomes a stylistic exercise in working through restrained conditions. ‘Rise’, the opening track, evolves gradually, with keyboardist Chris Abrahams dominating on both piano and organ whilst Lloyd Swanton traces contemplative bowed drones on his bass and drummer Tony Buck opts for restraint, at least initially, with gentle silhouettes sketched out on cymbals and rattles. This is The Necks at their jazziest, with Abrahams adopting a crystalline tone that wouldn’t sound out of place on an ECM record (indeed, he sounds remarkably like a hybrid of Keith Jarrett and Colin Vallon, two of that label’s most expressive pianists). Despite the pristine nature of the piano, the presence of melancholic drones in the background combined with Buck’s uneasy polyrhythms imbues the piece with a certain dread factor and acute melancholy, the trio never settling into a comfortable emotional zone. As ‘Rise’ builds up its notes in increasingly dense flurries and clusters, The Necks conjure an almost spectral form of tension that never quite dissipates even as the album progresses in different directions.
In a startling volte-face, ‘Overhear’ sees Abrahams ditch the piano altogether in favour of what sounds like a Hammond organ beamed in from the 1960s. Swanton’s bass scrapes seesaw metronomically like a beating heart whilst Buck continues to favour bells, cymbals and minimal extra percussion over his full kit. Despite this, the drummer still acts as the trio’s driving force, the sheer weight of his presence embodied here by the constant, almost motorik, way he uses such minimal means to deliver a form of blunt force. In many ways, although a very different proposition, Unfold touches on a similar vein of insistent beauty that inhabited Tony Conrad and Faust’s Outside the Dream Syndicate. Maybe it’s the retro-sounding organ, which shimmers and seethes like it’s been extracted from a Santana or Iron Butterfly album recorded circa 1970 and displays Abrahams’ talents at their most virtuosic.
The album’s real centrepiece, despite the brilliance of ‘Rise’ and ‘Overhear’, however, is the colossal ‘Blue Mountain’ (and it’s not even the longest track on Unfold!). Again, Abrahams’ piano work is gentle and melancholic as he traces sumptuous lines in the air, but the track’s real strength comes from Buck’s frenetic snare rolls that seem to build and build without breaking free and the rumbling bass rumble from Swanton. Both lock into a groove both robust and ethereal, a cascade of sounds that swirls around Abrahams’ piano like it’s stuck in the heart of a storm. It’s why comparisons between The Necks and “post-rock” fall so wildly wide of the mark: no mere rock band could exert this level of control and tension without wanting to break out into solos to let in some air. The Necks, however, relish this constrictive groove, allowing it to force them to find new ways to express their unique talents. The symbiosis between the three is remarkable, with none dropping out and relinquishing his contributions through fatigue.
The longest track is closer ‘Timepiece’ (although the four sides of the album aren’t numbered, thus allowing listeners to explore Unfold from different perspectives) and it may be the least effective in many ways. Then again, it’s also the most abstract, owing a great deal to free improv and avant-garde jazz, with Tony Buck rattling away on the toms surrounded by a plethora of shuffling percussion noises (I’m assuming they’re overdubs, otherwise the drummer may be a perpetual motion device we should be using to save the world’s energy problems rather than enjoying his remarkable musical talents). Swanton here seems more restrained and less assertive, whilst Chris Abrahams, aside from contributing another organ-based backbone drone, limits himself somewhat to elusive swirls on piano that don’t always linger as much as they could. Having said that, ‘Timepiece’ is an exercise in sketching new possibilities, some of which might bear mightier fruit on later Necks releases.
With the thundering brilliance of ‘Blue Mountain’ and ‘Rise’ and the rhythmic psychedelic minimalism of ‘Overhear’, Unfold displays The Necks at their jazziest and most experimental, almost paradoxically given that they have less room to experiment on four shorter pieces than on the long single ones they’ve accustomed us to. As ever with the Australians, the musicianship is never short of wondrous, and they’ve used the new format to take their music into esoteric and mysterious realms. Not just are the results musically brilliant, they resonate with an emotional force that is too often absent in this sort of music.
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Mon Feb 13 13:24:19 GMT 2017The Free Jazz Collective 90
By Philip Coombs
As we northern Canadians have finally stopped shoveling and started mowing our lawns after another long and dark winter, one can hear summer music blasting our of cars still riding on snow tires out of fear of a relapse. I can very clearly remember back when my band mates and I were starting to get our first taste of summer driving. We had an old beater of a car that worked fine except for the cassette deck. It had enveloped and held hostage the album Shaved Fish by John Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band so whether we wanted it to or not, that was the soundtrack of that summer.
I stumbled on that memory as I was driving to work and realized that I had been playing Unfold by Australian heavyweights The Necks for quite some time now and was becoming the soundtrack of this summer, albeit by choice this time.
I have fallen into the well-orchestrated trance of this group before, usually, a 45-50 minute single track ebbing and flowing and eventually releasing you only to realize that you had arrived at work largely by muscle memory.
The one major difference with Unfold is the number of tracks. This time around, instead of expanding on one central idea, they have given us four. The reason for this is the decision to release Unfold on vinyl, thus based on the restraints of the medium, four unnumbered sides were written to be listened to in whatever order strikes you. I was not one of the lucky ones to get in on the vinyl before the first pressing sold out but my digital download proved to have the same effect. Unfold became the album without a sequence.
How would The Necks navigate these parameters? Why, quite well, thank you. Chris Abrahams (piano and Hammond Organ) takes the liberty of driving 'Overhear' with his Hammond and on 'Rise' he shows his searching side with the piano. Lloyd Swanton (electric and double bass) and Tony Buck (drums and guitar) surround Abrahams like the outside of a puzzle and the more they squeeze inward, the more the piano responds to the claustrophobia.
The other two tracks, 'Blue Mountain' and 'Timepiece' are stomping grounds for the rhythm section. Buck and Swanton blast their way with what seems to be a full attack but only to realize soon enough that there are still layers that can be found. A refreshing approach for a group that has 19 records under their belt.
Here I am again sitting in my car, parked outside a grey building wondering if I can finish this track before I have to off the ignition and walk out into the morning sun and the only thing I can think of is I hope all my Australian friends are enjoying winter. Tue Jun 27 04:00:00 GMT 2017
Tiny Mix Tapes 80
The Necks
Unfold
[Ideologic Organ; 2017]
Rating: 4/5
Unfold, Australian trio The Necks’ 19th release, is a challenging but eerily beautiful free-improv record doubling up as a critique of the album-form. Each of the four pieces — among the shortest the band have ever released — is the length of a side of vinyl, maintaining a constant state of tension without exploding into noise or virtuoso soloing. Since none of the tracks are given numbers, the album allows you to develop your own listening strategy. It’s less a playlist to be put on shuffle (your music streaming service of choice places them in order of ascending length) than a Choose Your Own Adventure with a potentially infinite number of in-built listening experiences.
It would be a mistake to take the title at face value. These pieces do not “unfold” by starting in one position and elaborating on a theme in a linear way. They do not reach a point that has been determined in advance (beginning at point A and reaching point C after a detour at point B) by offering variations on their individual moments. They instead gradually expose the possibilities that were there at the start by showing all the working out, handing over all the evidence.
Each piece is organized around a theme, favoring atmosphere and texture over melody, groove, or fireworks, leaving us unable to fetishize any individual element as if it could be detached from the whole and turned into a hummable key hook. As ever with free-improv records, the level of control is remarkable. Even if there is a bit of studio trickery here and there (overdubbing, reverb, synths), what you have to listen out for is how each individual plays in the absolute present — it’s not about some silly New Age idea about “living in the moment,” it’s about producing something that can never be repeated.
“Rise” begins with a typical Chris Abrahams piano flourish and a retro sci-fi synth pad. Lloyd Swanton’s bass gurgles, snoring like a satisfied beast, before he starts using the bow to make a more conventional double-bass sound as if he were playing in a string quartet. Tony Buck’s drums are impossible to make sense of, their incomprehensibility acting as the element that makes Unfold comprehensible as a whole. His drumming is as expressive as it is rhythmic, as if he’s playing “prepared” drums rather than in a jazz setup; here, the snare drum — and the absent bass-drum and toms — take a backseat to clattering hi-hats and churning arrhythmic shaker sounds (which may well even be tied to the hi-hats). At this point, the percussion sounds like someone dipping their hand into a box of Legos. If the bass-drum and toms are there at all, they’re either filtered to within an inch of their lives or concealed by Swanton’s bass. The last third descends into chaos.
“Overhear” begins with a moaning bowed bass sound, drums that sound like someone shaking a bag of broken teeth, and an organ, which here acts as the lead instrument. It sounds like Terry Riley playing covers of The Doors in a keyboard shop haunted by the ghosts of Booker T & the MG’s (or something like that). The organ figure circles around and around, draining dry any possibility of uniting everything under a groove, despite the instrument’s usual associations with funk, soul, and praising the lord.
“Blue Mountain” is the most engaging and unashamedly beautiful piece here. You might need to sit in silence for a little while after listening to it. The band begin as an ensemble — rolling snares, a driving hollowed out organ synth, piano, bass — and they never let up. Abrahams plays something amounting to a hummable melody, offering a whole series of meditations on its basic figure throughout. The percussion here sounds like the symbolic death rattles of some orientalising cult, but it’s paired with wind-chimes that add a dimension of randomness to the proceedings. There’s a peculiar moment of calm half way through, where you’re left with just the piano, organ, wind-chimes, and what is probably Swanton scraping his bass. After about 13 minutes, the tension starts to ramp up. Buck’s bass drum starts working like a techno kick smothered in cymbals, the spaces in Abrahams’ figures become ever smaller, and that scraping sound becomes increasingly anxious. It finishes in jets of noise, each sound blurring into one mass, almost indistinguishable from one another but still driving forward into oblivion.
“Timepiece” owes much more to unpredictability than it does the even ticking of a clock. This is time to think — time for the vaulting ambitions of the imagination — and not the rationalized time of the factory or the office. It begins with unsteady drumming. The snare sounds like it has delay on it, but it is most likely the work of Buck’s all too human hands, occasionally backed up by a buzzing sound. It could be the sound of hurrying through the undergrowth being laughed at by arrogant birds of paradise, or it could be a fire-bell breaking the lazy office worker out of their dreamy reverie. Or it could be the impending doom of the real world breaking into the gentle world of the nursery interior, given that Abraham’s sparse piano work is paired to an organ that sounds as much like a music box as it does a vibraphone, glockenspiel, xylophone, whatever. They intertwine, coming in waves without ever mobilizing a full-frontal attack. Swanton’s bass takes the role we would usually associate with the prepared piano. It plays a single note ever so often, like an on-the-one bass tone more familiar from drum & bass or dubstep. It’s ominous, brooding, and a fitting end.