New Necks

I like just about everything put out on the Tonus Music label, where Nik Bartsch got his start. Check Don Li, Mik Keusen, and Sha's Banru if you're into the Nik Bartsch/Dawn of Midi minimal vibe.

saw them in LA on monday, they were a-m-a-z-i-n-g

This live performance from a year ago is mesmerizing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFpWd1V__SI

Continuing the aside, Nik Bartsch's Mobile Extended has a few US sets coming up. Nowhere near me, alas.

May 01 Portland, OR Albetra Abbey
May 05 Troy, NY EMPAC- The Curts R.Priem Experimential Media and Performing Arts Center
May 06 New York, NY The Rubin Museum

I honestly can't believe I forgot about the 2 shows in NY this week. Disgusted with myself.

i heard that ppl stood a reasonable chance of getting in via the standby line but i couldn't make it either night

chicago show last night was sublime, warm & bubbly. i was sitting in front of tony buck and it was interesting to see how their sound comes together and where all the noises come from. at one point he moved a brush about an inch in either direction on the snare for 35 min straight. 35 min! he also rolled some bells around with his feet. i also thought it was interesting how gently he used the bass drum. anyway they played 2 longish sets and if they are in your area, you should definitely go.

seeing them Wednesday in Houston. havent been this excited for a show in a long time.

"the curves of the desire imprisoned somewhere, in a space with an implacably rectilinear geometry. But it's also a pink sky pastel, something of our sexual, epileptic and short-lived world." pretentious as fuck, but ace French drummer Sylvain Darrifourcq describing his acoustic chamber jazz trio Axel Erotic - In Love With album. It is only remotely similar to The Necks in the sense that it is improv, albeit with no piano - more like Dawn Of Midi I suppose, but it is still very good.

had incredibly high expectations going to see them last night, hoping for something spare & fragile & precious, and instead got this gorgeous shimmering jumble, ideas gradually refined through repetitions, everything turning into a radiant blur that left me feeling like a well-stroked cat

tony buck was v pleasingly understated and cliche-free, not seen anything like that before

excerpt from new one: https://soundcloud.com/editionsmego/the-necks-timepiece-excerpt-soma025

Not onboard for this. I think I've mostly been responding to the gestures towards dub in earlier Necks albums, so for me its all about that bass.

Whoa, awesome, thanks Tylerw!

Well, I love colorful rhythm clatter and chiming sounds, so I couldn't be happier. Good song title, too, for music with stut t e r y staccato bass figures that sound like a pocketwatch winding down!

Got home from work to find the Necks boxset had arrived. That's this evening sorted.

New record 'Unfold' available now. Sounds ace after a couple of listens; a 'gorgeous shimmering jumble' to borrow ogmor's phrase. 'Blue Mountain' is the standout for me so far.

Going to see them again soon, a few weeks. Looking forward to it so much! The show I went to brought out all kinds of people I rarely see at shows and it made me think of their rather broad appeal.

ugh, i'd love to see them.
new one is great — when I first put it on, I was kinda like "ok this is the necks", but by the middle of it I got the "holy shit how are they even doing this" feeling.

Gonna get there so early so I can sit right near Tony. They're playing for 2 nights!

they've definitely built up a cult audience over the years. it was a very bald crowd when I saw them

No reason why male pattern baldness should stop anyone enjoying this kind of sublime improv:p I love the new one already and like Tylerw on my first listen I had doubts + I was thinking are they turning into some average ECM plodders, but then realised it is absolutely wonderful.

Wow, Blue Mountain is glorious. What a band.

I think the first two tracks are amongst the best ever Necks as well, that organ on Overhear gives it a trance/gospel quality. Wonderful stuff.

Shades of "Vuh" in Overhear. But I think the involving stasis of Timepiece is the most arresting.

Well quite by happy chance I caught them -- for the first time ever -- last night here in SF. Stellar show.

so has anyone else seen this band play with a guest musician? at the second night of the chicago shows (the one i went to), joshua abrams (natural information society, among many others) sat in for the second set and it was really interesting to watch another person integrate into the necks sound-world, which seems very tightly sealed from the other sets i've seen them play (2). he played one of these https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sintir

They played with Ned Rothenberg at the first Big Ears, iirc. It was billed under their four names rather than Necks + NR. (I wish the festival still had previous years' schedules archived so I could check that.)

he's a saxophone player right? how was it? the set with abrams was significantly more heavy on the groove side of things (he's a bass player most of the time iirc) if memory serves there were even some riffy moments. i think i enjoyed the pure Necks set slightly more bc they are like a snowglobe band -- you enter their world and then stay there for a while to daydream.

As I recall the set, it was very much Rothenberg entering Necksian trance-space, long lines and patterns. I don't know enough about him to say if that's his territory to start with.

not much use to me by the looks of it, but maybe relevant to some of your interests:

Sat 29th: Cheltenham, UK - Cheltenham Jazz Festival

Sun 30th: Bray, Ireland - Bray Jazz Festival

MAY

Mon 1st: Brighton, UK - St Luke's Church

Wed 3rd: London, UK - Jazz Cafe

Sat 6th: Glasgow, UK - Glasgow Tectonics - The Necks with BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra

Sun 7th: Glasgow, UK - Glasgow Tectonics - Eddie Prévost's Spirals with members of The Necks

Mon 8th: Rijkesvorsel, Belgium - De Singer

Tue 9th: Paris, France - La Dynamo

Wed 10th: Prague, Czech Republic - Palac Akropolis

Thu 11th: Olomouc, Czech Republic - Jazz Tibet Club

Fri 12th: Ustí Nad Labem, Czech Republic - Národní dům

I'm photographing Tectonics again this year and really looking forward to finally seeing The Necks, never managed to catch them before.

somehow i can't warm up to the necks. whenever i try the repetitive music bores to death me after about five minutes. maybe my attention span is just too small.

"bores me to death"

more like alex in geirhattan

I was blasting out the Sex album in the kitchen last summer, and I overheard my last neighbour, in his garden saying to his girlfriend "[something something] weird cunt [more mumbling] shit fucking music!". He was a HGV driver and I told him it would be ideal driving music, but he didn't listen to my advice!

listening now -- interview + performance w/ the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra -- sounds cool.
www.abc.net.au/classic/content/2017/05/02/4662103.htm

This is terrific (no surprise).

yeahhhh, at points it almost sounds like the necks meet bernard hermann

You can watch the whole of the Necks performance (w/ orchestra) at Tectonics Glasgow here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05274dq

This is so how I expected. 1 id, 1 ego, 1 superego is enough.

Geoff Dyer goes in

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/magazine/my-obsession-with-the-necks-the-greatest-trio-on-earth.html

are we allowed to comment on this piece?

Comment away! (The Lab in SF, which Dyer talks about throughout, is where I saw them earlier this year.)

i changed my mind. i choose not to comment.

i should check and see if the necks are on spotify. i never see their CDs anywhere.

I couldn't stand The Colour of Memory 20 years ago, and also can't stand reading him on The Necks either. Sorry, I know this is a pretty lame "hot take" or whatever. I will shut up now.

It is the inverse of writing that makes you want to listen to good music in that it puts you off instead.

well, me anyways. I'll stfu and go away now.

I detected, so far back in the mix it seemed to have leaked through the inadequate sound proofing of a neighboring sound system, the faint bleed of funk

calzino OTM

yeah, see, i was trying to be nice. i don't know the writer's work. but it reads like an extra-long blog post and makes me wish that editors still existed.

i mean you could cut it in half and have a good editor work with that writer and you could make it a LOT better. also i'm just sensitive to sweeping statements about jazz. stuff like this:

"Now the claim made frequently on behalf of free playing is that everyone solos all the time."

this is just not anything i have ever heard anyone say. free playing is great! everyone solos all the time!

maybe i'm just too critical.

Yeah, the nearest thing I can think of to his "everyone solos all the time" is Joe Zawinul's comment abt Weather Report - "“We always solo, we never solo“ - and I'm sure even a nitwit like Geoff Dyer would recognise that they were not a 'free playing' group.