Drone Records

NECKS, THE - Open

Format: CD

Label & Cat.Number: ReR Megacorp RER

Release Year: 2013

Note: one long piece of music (68 min.) that somehow stops the time-flow of the modern world => a very reduced & clear handplayed subtleness, maybe their most quiet & meditative work yet..... 17th album in the 26 year career of this unique Australian trio..

Price (incl. 19% VAT): €14.00

More Info

"Die unvergleichlichen THE NECKS mit ihrem nunmehr 17. Album ihrer 26-jährigen Karriere.
THE NECKS haben etwas geschafft, was nur wenigen Künstlern gelingt: einen singulären Stil
zu kreieren, dabei eine ganz unverkennbare eigene Handschrift entwickelt und doch mit jedem
neuen Album nicht einfach bewährte Rezepturen neu aufgekocht, sondern durch feinfühlige
Neujustierung der Parameter neue Nuancen offenbart. Das leitende Motiv bei „Open“ waren –
nach dem vergleichsweise dynamischen, stellenweise eruptiven „Mindset“ von 2011 –
Stille und meditative Klarheit, die etwa „Drive By“ innewohnte. CHRIS ABRAHAMS (Piano),
TONY BUCK (Drums) und LLOYD SWANTON (Bass) setzen im Laufe der 68 Minuten einen
repetitiv-hypnotisierenden Klangfl uss aus leichtfüßig swingendem (Post-)Jazz, repetitiven Grooves à la JAKI LIEBEZEIT (CAN) und elektronischen Sounds in Gang, der elegant innerhalb der selbst gewählten Koordinaten mäandert und bei aller scheinbaren Reduktion und Schlichtheit unter der subtilen Oberfl äche eine komplexe Struktur offenlegt. Wie immer bei den Australiern. //
OPEN will be the Necks’ 17th album, and the 11th released by ReR. Here the band returns to the territory for which it is best known: a single, glacially mutating, long-form piece that runs for a little over an hour.
The previous record, “Mindset”, said bassist Lloyd Swanton, “reached some pretty intense levels at times, and though we never overtly discussed it, I think that on Open, by contrast, all three of us were taken by the idea of working in a field of significant stillness. At least, after a couple of days’ recording, it became clear that the music was leading us in this direction.” Feeding into the ground plan are floating arco harmonics, minimalist funk, iterative piano figures, subliminal and liminal pulses, twittering electronics and at one point an arco bass choir. It is unequivocally a studio work, with layer laid on layer, while still, miraculously, remaining architecturally spare." [label info]

www.rermegacorp.com

"The Necks might be our favorite jazz group, most of their records/performances being single hour long pieces, always a lush, patient, slow build, all texture and mood, super dynamic, but in a way most bands can't pull off, just bass drums and piano, their sound dense and dark, doleful and lovely. The last few Necks records have found this minimal band getting a little maximal, their slow build eventually erupting into something dense and driving and almost psychedelic, as if in response to that, Open finds the group and their most hushed and abstract, with the first few minutes featuring a field of tinkling chimes, spare pointillist piano, and only the occasional flurry of bass notes, spacious and mesmeric, as we usually find ourselves saying about these guys, we would have been happy if there was no slow build at all, and the whole record was just this glistening, glimmering sprawl of abstract free jazz drift.
But there is a method to their madness, and at about the eight minute mark, the song shifts dramatically, an electronic pulse, some simple hi-hat rhythms, the occasional bass drum, and nothing else, weirdly hypnotic and barely there, the sound soon joined by a buzzing hum, a snare crack here, some bass thrum there, the sound blossoming into a sprawl of subtle tribal drumming, and more shimmering chimes, soon the piano comes back in, and the song begins to take a more jazz-like shape, albeit one that's still quite free and abstract, the lilting piano melody offsetting the busy drumming, the sound shifting again soon after, with a snare roll that sounds almost like radio static, the bass and low notes on the piano unfurling a dense rumble, those chimes tying everything together again, before settling into something much more tranquil and serene, only to return to that strange electronic pulse / hi-hat section, which slips from jazzy shimmer, to abstract free form almost-psychedelia, the snare locked into another roll, adding a buzzy thrum, the sound finally settling into some hushed, laid back jazziness, wreathed in a dreamy droned out shimmer, gradually fading to silence.
Recommended, as always!" [Aquarius Records]