New Necks

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.

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!

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.

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!

you don't have to shut up. i wasn't trying to shut you up. that was just my reaction to the taborn piece.

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.

I'm suffering from an OD of "hot takes" here, Unperson! You should check Maldron's The Call out.

i've been listening to this album a lot lately:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=170rAzlx1X4

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.

Waldron was the first release on ECM iirc, got that one

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.

Free At Last absolutely rules, and yep it is ECM no1!

The Quest
his twin piano trio w/ Archie Shepp - Three For Freedom
Impressions
his plays Satie

These are some of my favourite things!

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.

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.

(and 90's/2000's australia would be a big black hole for me as far as this kind of thing goes...)

there is always something new to discover
that's why we're here :)

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

Peril was his "main" band for a good while there

huh
check him out! old 1991 neck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IX2pjZIUJHc

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.

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.

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.

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

the cover art is the best thing about it imo

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!

i hate the guitar

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

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!

see what you were driving at now, definitely not a classic vintage of Necks!

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

Anyone check out this collab with Underworld?

Yeah the Underworld fans like it, at least.

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.

https://thenecksau.bandcamp.com/album/three

it must be great being in the necks, just like, vrrrrrrrrooooooommmm

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

Album streaming today; enjoying it immensely so far!

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.

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,

Yeah if Open was the last album you really liked then you will definitely enjoy this.

i really like this

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.

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

'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!

It really is. This and Alabaster DePlume have been the soundtrack to my quarantine!

God this last track sounds like an unreleased late Talk Talk jam.

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.

Wrote a review of this that will go up on Tuesday. Second track sounds like a cross between Miles Davis's "He Loved Him Madly" and Tangerine Dream's Zeit. I like it a lot.

it's weird. you always make me listen again and again to this band. talk talk and tangerine dream's zeit, some of my favourite music. but though i understand the comparisons, there is a feel of late talk talk in the last piece and there is a hint to zeit in the second i don't think the necks have anything to do with those bands and their music. they take little snippets and repeat them for 20 minutes and more, they turn around and around, their music negates progression, it just circles around itself. it does not point anywhere. there is no horizon in it, just self-centeredness. like minimal music which was so hip in the second half of the seventies. but in the end it was just what the name says, it was music with very little creative input which was then inflated by repetition. not my cup of tea at all. though this has been the time i was the closest ever to like the necks.