New Necks

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

Stoked! I listen to the last couple of albums and some recent live streams I ripped constantly. They basically just get better and better.

It is such a joy to listen to these notes accumulate over time. Or, as on Aether amd Open, dissipate over time! For me they are now old masters confidently exploring their personal subjects (piano, bass and percussives) inside an unfolding temporal landscape. When they work/play, their distinct voices are simultaneously woven together and embedded inside this amazingly flexible collective perpetual motion sound sculpture thingy called the Necks! Exciting stuff that I will be listening to gratefully for the rest of my life!

Great news. That press release does make it sound like 2x 20-odd min tracks, as with Mindset, which I would be happy with.

I enjoy Open, but find it a bit too sparse in places to really love. Maybe it needs more time; I really didn't get on with Silverwater at first but now it might be my favourite of theirs ...

Yeah, Silverwater is my absolute favorite, really! Just gorgeous stuff. The unity of form created by so-apt the art/title/performance puts it above the others in the final analysis, what with all the jingly shimmering tidal waves of percussion rolling in and out. It plays paradoxically on your perception, seemingly both calm and busy at the same time. And then if you turn it up real loud you hear that there is all this stuff concealed beneath the lapping waves that are on the surface!!!

yeah silverwater is just after drive by for me. prefer the motorik stylings of the latter just a tad.

New one is a bit noisier/busier than Open. But these guys can do no wrong in my opinion.

My first impression is that this is pretty damn good, that is always a good sign with a Necks album.

both halves are very strong

Just got this. One quiet listen yesterday (whilst feeling ill), and it seemed a bit abstract / delicate, albeit more ominous than Open. Was hoping for something more groovey.

Anyone else got any thoughts after spending more time with it?

First listen through this morning, and it feels like a cross between Silverwater and Mindset.

I haven't heard Mindset, but it feels almost like a throwback to Piano, Bass, Drums for me.

Yeah? I've not listened to that in an age but I remember it being way more propulsive / chaotic. maybe I need to listen to this turned up.

My copy of Vertigo finally came, prepared piano and bowed bass and gongs and things like that = awesome. It is a negative/reverse image of Open, which is to say a minor key variation with the same atmospheric rubato approach. Couldn't be more different from Drive-By, ha, no grooves or rhythmic motifs to be found here at all. There's some sections with prestissimo cymbals and hammered piano notes giving a kinda polyrhythmic cushion, though. It levitates!

The second half is appropriately vertiginous with all this reverb and weird distant dragging/slurping percussive sounds and the bowed bass played in the higher registers so it sounds like a bagpipe drone or a sustained trumpet note. And then it gets more and more sinister and murky and the notes get lower and lower until the return of the prepared piano at the very end. Perfect title, concept, execution. Essential The Necks.

I'm having a hard time connecting to it, but I guess I miss what you call the "grooves." The Necks are never dull, but this is maybe the first album of theirs that tests my patience a bit. Maybe it'll grow on me.

Yeah, I can see that, they definitely are getting farther and farther and farther from the niche they carved out for themselves. This newer more experimental phase just happens to coincide exactly with all my own interests, maybe.

Listened to it this morning (it's on Spotify) and it's instantly one of my favorites by them.

They can do no wrong for me, they have been consistently great for decades imo

I would recommend Andrew Hill's out there masterpiece Compulsion!!!!!! (not my exclamation marks) to people who dig The Necks, it obviously has had a big influence on them.

anyone at cafe oto last night? hadn't seen them live before and it was incredible. just three wildly brilliant musicians playing off each other.

Bugger me, these guys are actually playing in Southampton next Thursday. Nobody plays in Southampton.

It is quite heartening to see on their tour itinerary that they have also played at such other cultural metropolises as Halifax, Exeter, Cork and Gateshead in recent years!

Feel pretty #blessed that they've made the trip across the ditch to New Zealand a few times; some of my favourite live shows. Slowly digging into the new one, and cheers xelab for the Compulsion!!!!!! tip! Closest thing I've seen to the Necks recently was Nik Bärtsch's Ronin (ECM, etc); attended a jazz festival in Shenzhen and played a side-show opening up a new jazz club beside the Pearl River Brewery's new beer museum on a party pier(?????).

btw i found out this week you can buy all the albums digitally from this norwegian site:

http://www.subradar.no/artist/necks

US TOUR

3/21 – Blue Whale – Los Angeles, CA – Angel City Arts
3/22 – Goethe Institute – Boston, MA – Non-Event
3/23 – Philadelphia Art Alliance – Philadelphia, PA – Ars Nova Workshop
3/24 – The Whitney Museum of Art – New York City, NY
3/25 – The Whitney Museum of Art – New York City, NY
3/26 – The Stage at KDHX – St. Louis, MO – The New Music Circle
3/27 – Constellation – Chicago, IL
3/28 – The KMAC Music Series (Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft) – Louisville, KY – The Kentucky Center for Performing Arts - Todd Hall
3/29 – The North Door – Austin, TX – Epistrophy Arts
3/30 – Match Houston – Houston, TX – Nameless Sound
3/31 – Big Ears Festival – Knoxville, TN – Tony Buck with Zeena Parkins*
4/01 – Big Ears Festival – Knoxville, TN – Chris Abrahams solo*
4/02 – Big Ears Festival – Knoxville, TN – The Necks*
*set times for Big Ears subject to date change – keep an eye on the schedule! http://www.bigearsfestival.com/

I saw them in Melbourne a few weeks back - brilliant as ever.

It truly is something how many layers they produce from three people playing live

never sure seeing this thread title if this thread is about The Necks or if there's some band I haven't heard of called New Necks

They will always be nummy num krautjazz goodness