New Necks

anyone seen them live before? seems like it'd be good to have some chemical aid beforehand

I've seen them a few times, sober or on a couple of drinks, and you absolutely don't need anything to be swept away in delight or wonderment, or stop thinking at all and enjoy detached brain dancing at drones or rhythms. but if the surrounds are comfortable, seems like it'd be good is probably an entirely accurate estimation.

Saw them last year at Big Ears 2 -- the trio, and also the three of them plus Ned Rothenberg. There was another concert involving an ad hoc group of players doing a Necks-like set, Tony Buck on drums. Highly recommended. I'd skip the chemicals, but that's just me.

xpost: and the "two sets with an intermission" duration of their shows would suit that, if you did try.

check the venue though. last time I saw them, this year, was in a jazz club where 80% of the couple of hundred capacity stand behind a railing by the bar, while a few dozen sit at dinner tables in 80% of the floorspace = prob not conducive. a few years back at ATP, they played in the afternoon sun, a meter from the harbour, where the entire audience bar 8 people* lay down on the trimmed lawn and let the piano roll through the ground = potential zomg.

*halfway through, one of these 8 hugging the stage turned around and saw the rest of us, tugged his mate's sleeve, and promptly sat cross-legged.

yeah i mostly wouldn't bother with chems either these days, once a year maybe, but seems like you could have a bit of a transcendental experience with this band!

Played Drive By at our record club last night; went down very well. Just bought Mosquito / See Through too; every time I play a Necks album for the first time in a while, I end up buying another one.

http://devonrecordclub.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/the-necks-–-drive-by-–-round-10-nick’s-choice/

anyone going to the gig next month at THE BISHOPSGATE INSTITUTE, whatever that is

I opted for the date in Oxford at "The oldest custom-built concert hall in Europe" http://bit.ly/qH8mcm

Anybody fancy Leeds on November 25th?

yeah I'm going to both the London dates.

Harold Budd and Werner Dafeldecker should be great at those non-London shows, wish i could catch this tour.

Probably will go to the Bishopsgate Institute one, just making sure I am in town for the date.

How is Mindset? Been on a serious kick but I think I prefer the more 'live' sounding, less overdubbed stuff, like Sex and Piano Bass Drum, though I've yet to hear an album by this group I dislike. Still, wondering if the new one is worth a plunge, given that I find Drive By a little too maximalist and Aether a little too sleepy. Their records are expensive in the States.

these dudes are nothing if not consistent -- the new one is totally gorgeous.

yes! they might be my favorite band going.

has anyone heard any of these side projects? http://www.thenecks.com/shop/other

Don't know any of those but I can highly recommend Buck's project with Martin Siewert and Steve Heather, Heaven And (not listed there).

Can't wait to hear the new one.

Yeah thanks for the heads-up

What is the name of the new album?

Open

The Wire seemed to really like it. I'm just glad it's on a US label so I don't have to pay like $28 for this one.

Open is out today and let me repeat myself: it is totally gorgeous.

Yeah I listened to that a bunch of times when it was streaming. It is a cool journey for sure, gotta track down more by this band. My kinda thing.

yeah it's really good. I think it's important to listen loud. playing softly in the background you might thing it just passed on by and nothing happened.

Loud, this thing is amazing. On headphones, another experience entirely.

Have only listened on headphones, and dug it a lot. Not sure when I will get to listen to it in any other context ....

I did turn it up loud though.

I found Open instantly gratifying. The last one - Mindset was a tougher nut to crack, still great though.

this cd only thing is ludicrous. might as well have a darts player amputating his right hand.

good thing the necks are left-handed!!

i mean 'necks are left-handed.' they're left-handed necks.

I mean, it is CD only because of the length I would think, and the listening experience. I don't think it is meant to be flipped on a turntable.

not ideal really - i'd sooner buy it digitally than on cd.

Oh, there isn't even a digital option? Whoa, that just seems like a bad idea by the label/band. Sorry, I had missed that.

nah you can buy it digitally

Ah cool I didn't see that on the site.

http://northernspy.11spot.com/the-necks-open.html

Yeah, that would make no sense at all if they didn't sell it digitally.

Feel like a cheapskate wretch for saying this, but I get Necks albums through my emusic subscription where they just get charged as single tracks i.e. £0.42 per album. They should probably sort that out but in the meantime, I'm sorry Necks - you will not get rich off me unless you play here live a little more often.

tbf guys if you promise to come and play up our end once a week i promise i will come and see you every time

their albums are so beautifully recorded, too. snare drum sound of dreams.

and i guess that is what i'm losing when i buy my shitty mp3s

neato:

The Necks 18th album Vertigo is an eventful, kaleidoscopic tone poem set against a darkly shimmering background. Slowly but inexorably moving forward, it crosses many frontiers yet remains true to the mission and mood established in the opening stanzas of this cinematic 44 minute journey. A work able to be viewed either as a whole, or two symmetrical halves, Vertigo sees The Necks once again offer an excursion in sound that reflects both the light and darkness of some preternatural world.

Vertigo will be released on 30th October in North America by Northern Spy Records. It follows their acclaimed 2013 album Open, described by SPIN as ‘the most beautiful album of the year’.

In contrast to the sustained improvisations that are their live performances, The Necks' studio albums take shape by way of intricate crafting brought to bear throughout the entire recording and mixing process. “The discussion this time really began in earnest in the session itself, where we started to pursue the idea of having a drone running from start to finish, off which we could hang ideas,” said bassist Lloyd Swanton “But like all Necks albums we ended up in a very different place from whatever our initial notion of it had been.”

Maintaining a teetering tension between suspension and collapse, Vertigo draws on a diverse palette of sounds created in the studio by Tony Buck (drums/percussion/guitar), Lloyd Swanton (bass) and Chris Abrahams (piano/keyboards), featuring everything from homemade instruments, extended instrumental techniques and marathon explorations of sonic textures.

One piece, at the same time two. Monochrome, yet multicoloured. Dark, yet incandescent. Expansive and still. Melancholic and exhilarating. The Necks. Vertigo.

It is pretty safe to say this is going to be very very good.

'vertigo' is pretty great. more rhythmically concerned and organ vibey than usual

Is it out now?

not officially for a little while i don't think

October I think. Is it two tracks? I've seen it announced and made a note to order it but not looked at details of listened. Rhythm and organs is good in my mind.

Ooh no, Australian CD release is tomorrow.

http://www.thenecks.com/news

Picked up this EP yesterday, which features all Necks in various permutations and sounds very nice on vinyl - I remember the song Benchtop getting a lot of radio play back in the day (the day being 1990)

The Chris Abrahams / Melanie Oxley LP Jerusalem Bay was going for a “Necks with vocals” thing and largely succeeds - features Lloyd Swanton but not Tony Buck (Toby Hall is fantastic tho)

While on the subject of Necks With Vocalists, here is a film documenting their 1987 tour of Mexico supporting cabaret-flavoured singer Jeannie Lewis where they all look indecently young

Wandering back into this album

The second half of "Causeway" opened up for me in a big way when I listened to it again last night. I think I underrated that one at first

im occasionally riding a ferry as the sun sets and ive started throwing this track on for the occasion and thats a nice combo alright

I'm still completely hooked on this record.

i have a wee controp -- i tried to listen to this while i was out for a walk and it was so boring i had to turn it off. is it possible that this band is often quite boring? i will accept that sometimes i don't have the patience to wait 15 minutes for them to get to the good part. i genuinely like this band and have seen them perform and was not bored -- maybe something has changed in me.

There is no good part, it's all the good part (or none of it is depending on your perspective). :) I mean it can absolutely be background music and sound like nothing at all, or like aimless plinking at their instruments for some pieces. But I do think they have a focus and commitment that comes through and rewards close listening too, that long-form attention to detail that's missing from a lot of both ambient and free improv.

This isn't my favorite Necks but I do like it a lot. 'Ghost Net' is like a magic eye picture, it either sounds like a 'shreds' video joke or like someone didn't line up the tracks in a DAW correctly, or like some deep west African-influenced 12/8 stuff if you actually try to follow the patterns. Referencing time and rhythm but not actually in time? Idk.

I've been putting on Warm Running Sunlight a lot just to bathe in the textures, it's nice to hear the low cymbal frequencies (and I feel like that's actually the focus of the track, it's like everything else is backing up the cymbals).

yeah it is odd, ghost net, listening to it and there's that slightly jarring feeling of wanting to flick it into time, tho idk if that's just the residue of dj brain.

the best time i had listening to this was on an early morning flight, eyes closed, with noise-cancelling headphones. just completely immersed.

xp that's a nice description of 'ghost net'. i've never not heard "long-form attention to detail" in their work. one thing that hasn't really opened up for me yet with this new one is hearing c.a. do his 'lots of staggered notes in sort of a constant stream' style of playing on the organ. i love it when he does it on the piano because of the acoustic resonance etc (townsville is basically this through the whole piece) but on the organ... idk it doesn't sound the same and i haven't opened up to it yet.

I've been putting on Warm Running Sunlight a lot just to bathe

first read-through i was like 'oh i need to bathe to this track too' haha

repetitive jazz useful to encourage ourselves to bathe

i can accept that it could be a me-problem at this time given that my overall life schedule is absolutely chaotic and most of my days and nights are spent bouncing from one place to another, constantly switching roles, and having little time for reflective listening of this nature.

album is great

This is what I wound up saying about it for Stereogum:

I like Australian trio the Necks’ music, but their hardcore fans’ rapturous devotion is weird to me. Their stuff is (not always, but often) so chilled-out and meditative that it’s impossible to focus on; it seems to waver right at the edge of perception, like a heat mirage on a highway. And that’s deliberate; their albums typically consist of single 45-60 minute tracks. Disquiet is different only in quantity; it’s a three-CD set. The first piece, “Rapid Eye Movement,” runs 57:07 and sounds like the beginning of Miles Davis’ “Shh/Peaceful” from In A Silent Way, before everything really gets started, stretched out for an hour. (It may also remind you of the Doors.) The more assertive “Ghost Net” runs 74:01. The third disc has two tracks, “Causeway” and “Warm Running Sunlight.” The former is the “single,” and has some really nice piano laid over a reverberating, precisely repeated guitar figure.

If we're gonna do "it's the same thing over and over" as a criticism I'm gonna say I'd expect better.

Yeah, I love this record. I still think Aether is my favorite of theirs, but the vibe here is immaculate— meditation punctuated by some revelatory moments.

LL, i do understand what you’re saying, though— I still don’t totally understand the plaudits for the Jeff Parker IVtet record from last year, which struck me as so boring that I literally deleted it from my devices to free up space

"Warm Running Sunlight" has some moments that remind me of this great record 'Punk Equinox' by Lori Goldston and Stefan Christoff. The instrumentation other than organ is different, but vibes wise it's there. https://dasatapes.bandcamp.com/album/punk-equinox

(Probably one of my top 5 of 2022!)

back to this. "rapid eye movement" is so juicy.

feels like a seance tbh

listening to this kept me in a benevolent and meditative state all morning at work.

Gonna start painting the front fence and maybe this will be the soundtrack.

necks saving my ass today tbh. 'silverwater' now 'three'.

found an old cache of CDs and was really excited to see Drive-By, Aether, Hanging Gardens, and Aquatic (that second track!) in there.

Hanging Gardens used to be an ILM fave and was my first Necks, but I feel like it's been sort of forgotten in their catalog.

oh wow they're touring Europe, I wish

seeing them next week!

I can see why if you're a big Necks fan then the structure and discipline of 'Hanging Gardens' - their most krautrock album - might seem a bit entry-level or on the nose, but for exactly this reason it's also an extremely singular album both within their discography and more broadly; it's like if Laika had recorded a riposte to Insides' 'Clear Skin' circa 1996.