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.
― scott seward, Thursday, 5 October 2017 12:50 (six years ago) link
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.
― scott seward, Thursday, 5 October 2017 13:00 (six years ago) link
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.
― Ward Fowler, Thursday, 5 October 2017 13:13 (six years ago) link
There were two recent longform pieces by Adam Shatz on Mal Waldron + Craig Taborn which I thought were great. And they made me want to listen to the artists again, without getting too pseudy, with an added appreciation of them of sorts or summat like that! I think a good editor would tell Dyer to not be such a bad writer or just give up the game!
― calzino, Thursday, 5 October 2017 13:56 (six years ago) link
i thought that craig taborn thing was too long too. and tried too hard to make him this inscrutable and mysterious genius. he likes indie rock! but he makes jazz! who is he really?? i guess the music i had heard of his in the past never seemed that mysterious to me.
i am all for people wanting to hear jazz after reading something though. and i did read the whole thing. but it was really long. and it just seemed like he led the modern jazz life and that is not usually that exciting a life to read about.
― scott seward, Thursday, 5 October 2017 14:19 (six years ago) link
I think Taboorn + Maldron are inscrutable and mysterious geniuses, or is that genii? Fuck knows, I'd be a sorry excuse for a music critic - so I'll shut up!
― calzino, Thursday, 5 October 2017 14:33 (six years ago) link
you don't have to shut up. i wasn't trying to shut you up. that was just my reaction to the taborn piece.
― scott seward, Thursday, 5 October 2017 14:51 (six years ago) link
I don't understand how anyone could find Craig Taborn's music mysterious or hard-to-embrace unless they were actively trying to do so. Mal Waldron I've never really dived into, but what I have heard is...a 1950s jazz player who gets a little adventurous sometimes? I mean, half the time he's playing standards anyway. I guess if you're a piano player Mal Waldron is doing some otherworldly shit, but if you're just a listener he's...fine.
The Necks, I don't really get. I kind of prefer their latest album because the pieces are 15 minutes long instead of an hour, but honestly most of their stuff could be on ECM without scaring anybody.
― grawlix (unperson), Thursday, 5 October 2017 15:09 (six years ago) link
I'm suffering from an OD of "hot takes" here, Unperson! You should check Maldron's The Call out.
― calzino, Thursday, 5 October 2017 15:29 (six years ago) link
i've been listening to this album a lot lately:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=170rAzlx1X4
― scott seward, Thursday, 5 October 2017 16:13 (six years ago) link
he made lots of excellent records in the 70's. the stuff he did with steve lacy is really cool if you like steve lacy. i like that album with gary peacock a lot too.
― scott seward, Thursday, 5 October 2017 16:15 (six years ago) link
Waldron was the first release on ECM iirc, got that one
― The Walter Mittyville Horror (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 5 October 2017 16:20 (six years ago) link
Hard Talk. i like that one. live. euro dudes + lacy. i dunno, he's on/made a ton of good records past the 50's. there is a lot to listen to.
― scott seward, Thursday, 5 October 2017 16:21 (six years ago) link
Free At Last absolutely rules, and yep it is ECM no1!
― calzino, Thursday, 5 October 2017 16:32 (six years ago) link
The Questhis twin piano trio w/ Archie Shepp - Three For FreedomImpressionshis plays Satie
These are some of my favourite things!
― calzino, Thursday, 5 October 2017 16:35 (six years ago) link
i heard tony buck has a solo album out -- has anyone heard it? i am curious about it but not enough to spend money just yet.
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, 5 October 2017 16:44 (six years ago) link
i looked up their individual stuff and they have all played with 50 groups i've never heard of. it's a big little world out there. i'm not that up on 90's/2000's stuff though.
― scott seward, Thursday, 5 October 2017 16:47 (six years ago) link
(and 90's/2000's australia would be a big black hole for me as far as this kind of thing goes...)
― scott seward, Thursday, 5 October 2017 16:51 (six years ago) link
there is always something new to discoverthat's why we're here :)
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, 5 October 2017 16:57 (six years ago) link
i would welcome recommendations for necks side projects (esp tony buck-based) ones if anyone has them
heard tony buck has a solo album out -- has anyone heard it? i am curious about it but not enough to spend money just yet.
Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus was good
― shackling the masses with plastic-wrapped snack picks (sic), Thursday, 5 October 2017 16:59 (six years ago) link
Peril was his "main" band for a good while there
― shackling the masses with plastic-wrapped snack picks (sic), Thursday, 5 October 2017 17:00 (six years ago) link
huhcheck him out! old 1991 neckhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX2pjZIUJHc
― weird woman in a bar (La Lechera), Thursday, 5 October 2017 19:32 (six years ago) link
Ach, I like Geoff Dyer. I get why that phenomenological transcribing of music might be regarded as pointless and superfluous but as it stands, i think he does it well. Some of the passages about Monk in But Beautiful are extraordinary.
― The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums (Chinaski), Friday, 6 October 2017 16:50 (six years ago) link
he can obviously write it just needed a good editor. take this paragraph out, shorten this, move this up, move this down. that's how i felt reading it anyway. usually i don't feel that way reading the NYT even at this late date. someone on my facebook loved the first paragraph so much. that's why i clicked on it.
― scott seward, Friday, 6 October 2017 17:38 (six years ago) link
I totally mourn the loss of good editors, but in Dyer's defence that verbosity and perfromative lack of self consciousness are part of his shtick so it didn't grate on me too much.
― The shard-borne beetle with his drowsy hums (Chinaski), Friday, 6 October 2017 18:57 (six years ago) link
Given both the details of today's Pitchfork review and the truly abysmal 90s cover art, safe to say this is the first Necks album I am not champing at the bit to hear
I'll still buy it, of course
― Paul Ponzi, Monday, 13 August 2018 13:27 (five years ago) link
the cover art is the best thing about it imo
― ANU (sisilafami), Monday, 13 August 2018 15:15 (five years ago) link
this is very nice so far! Not read p4k or looked at the album cover yet tho! How much thrills 'n' spills you expect out of this Necks album shouldn't be judged out of isolation from how you much you liked their last 19 albums!
― calzino, Monday, 13 August 2018 21:05 (five years ago) link
i hate the guitar
― ANU (sisilafami), Monday, 13 August 2018 21:34 (five years ago) link
hm, i had hoped the era of guitar on necks records ("chemist"-era?) had passed... it always felt a bit corny and out-of-place to me
― umsworth (emsworth), Monday, 13 August 2018 21:42 (five years ago) link
I left it playing in the kitchen and had to go out, and when I come back, it was after the guitar bit. And rewinding back didn't seem right. i'll try it another day!
― calzino, Monday, 13 August 2018 22:01 (five years ago) link
see what you were driving at now, definitely not a classic vintage of Necks!
― calzino, Tuesday, 14 August 2018 09:13 (five years ago) link
This isn't quite the bummer I expected it to be, but that middle section definitely sounds like it could be any number of boring modern 'krautrock' inspired bands. Really liked the first 20 minutes, though, even if it is a bit Necks 101
― Paul Ponzi, Tuesday, 14 August 2018 16:38 (five years ago) link
Anyone check out this collab with Underworld?
― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 16:56 (five years ago) link
Yeah the Underworld fans like it, at least.
― lukas, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:08 (five years ago) link
There's a touch of 'jazzy house' to it that's perhaps just this side of corny, but on the other hand it's cool to hear rhythmic Necks again. And I like how it starts fully electronic, brings them in, then slowly transitions to fully acoustic and eventually to rubato Neckisms.
― change display name (Jordan), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:31 (five years ago) link
https://thenecksau.bandcamp.com/album/three
it must be great being in the necks, just like, vrrrrrrrrooooooommmm
― j., Thursday, 13 February 2020 03:35 (four years ago) link
the consuming rattle of the opener, “Lovelock,” dedicated to the memory of Damien Lovelock, former frontman of The Celibate Rifles, is a weightless and atmospheric threnody that ruminates in the quiet and overwhelming moments of grief
aww
― Fantastic. Great move. Well done (sic), Thursday, 13 February 2020 07:33 (four years ago) link
Album streaming today; enjoying it immensely so far!
― Steve Reich In The Afternoon (Against The 80s), Friday, 27 March 2020 14:58 (four years ago) link
New album is great and their prettiest album in years and years, albeit hardly groundbreaking - as hinted by the Underworld collaborations they’ve returned to a “classic” Necks sound: the ringing piano chords and circular bass of “Bloom” reminds me of Drive By; “Lovelock” is all whispery ambience and rustle somewhere between Silent Night and Aether, and is closest to the live style; “Further” is a return to the Sex / Aquatic sound by way of Journey in Satchidananda.
― Tim F, Saturday, 28 March 2020 03:58 (four years ago) link
oh that sounds good. have had some reliably great live experiences with them in the last couple of years but I think 'open' was their last essential recording,
― umsworth (emsworth), Saturday, 28 March 2020 07:52 (four years ago) link
Yeah if Open was the last album you really liked then you will definitely enjoy this.
― Tim F, Saturday, 28 March 2020 08:35 (four years ago) link
i really like this
― budo jeru, Saturday, 28 March 2020 19:20 (four years ago) link
I enjoyed Body quite a lot, actually, it felt like something genuinely different for them. That said, I've not listened to it anywhere near as intensely as my favourites by them over a similar length of time, perhaps because it lent itself far less to ambient / atmospheric 'use'.
Got Three yesterday, and gave it a half listen last night. Chemist is probably my second favourite thing they've done, so I'm looking forward to exploring what they do with a similar format again.
― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Friday, 3 April 2020 07:57 (three years ago) link
I liked Vertigo quite a bit, but never ended up connecting with Unfold or Body. I think they are back on track with this one, though. Glad they've ditched the guitar
― Paul Ponzi, Friday, 3 April 2020 13:56 (three years ago) link
'Unfold' seems to get a bit ignored, but I thought was the some of best music they've recorded in years, esp 'Blue Mountain'. New one is great, though, isn't it!
― Steve Reich In The Afternoon (Against The 80s), Friday, 3 April 2020 14:31 (three years ago) link
It really is. This and Alabaster DePlume have been the soundtrack to my quarantine!
― Paul Ponzi, Friday, 3 April 2020 14:36 (three years ago) link
God this last track sounds like an unreleased late Talk Talk jam.
― Hey Bob (Scik Mouthy), Friday, 3 April 2020 18:56 (three years ago) link
Enjoying this a lot. First track is really clattery - almost gamelan; second is eerie as hell - piano led and pure atmosphere, like the desert at night.
― Vanishing Point (Chinaski), Sunday, 5 April 2020 19:02 (three years ago) link