Holiday Listening Part 1 (The Necks in Northumberland)

My last holiday listening piece looked at music conceived for specific locations - duets for musicians and resonant buildings. This time round, I picked out three records with a slow resting heart rate, and hoped a theme would emerge. Here's the first...

The Necks - Aether - Lloyd Swanton (bass); Chris Abrahams (piano); Tony Buck (drums)

The Necks began as an improvisation workshop, formed by three key members of the late 80s Australian jazz scene. Swanton, Abrahams and Buck were keen to try something new, in part inspired by their experience of working in other musics, particularly those where long-form repetition is common (salsa, funk, dub reggae, some African and Indonesian music...). They moved away from standard jazz forms, and worked to break down the usual distinction between soloist and rhythm section (Tony Buck: "we wanted to play in a way where no one was soloing.")(1). Buck contrasts this with the "everyone solos" approach of some improvised music.

Decades on, we have a good idea what to expect: a typical Necks live performance consists of an hour-long piece of music, created in the moment, with no plan or rehearsal (Buck: "we don't have anything we have to do.")(2) Long, slowly evolving grooves are common, but not compulsory. On record, The Necks still tend towards hour-long epics. They make full use of the studio, though, bringing in extra instruments, and recording multiple overdubs, mixing and matching until they're happy. The first Necks record I heard was the only one in the shop that day, Hanging Gardens. This, their fifth release, begins with a skittering cymbal figure, which sets up a head-nodding drum n bass flavoured groove (with strong hints of electric Miles Davis). According to Lloyd Swanton, the first mix was "really full on", so the band "decided to be ruthless with the laser scalpel and cut it right back."(3) The finished record got me hooked - the brilliant playing, and skilful studio sculpting makes for an absorbing 60+ minutes (I'd love to hear that full on mix, though)

On their sixth record, the band came up with a bolder way of building an hour-long piece of music. Aether begins with of a series of isolated "events", separated by spells of silence. In the first section, these silences are daringly long, giving the music an unpredictable, hard-to-track quality.(4) Gradually, the silences shorten, and the warm synth/bass/cymbal "events" are joined by a variety of new gestures, which fill up the space: we hear a pulsing piano, a bowed cymbal, and a juddering synth effect. At around the 20 minute mark, there are hints of a piano melody, and, at about 30, that synth becomes more constant, fully closing up the gaps. Five minutes later, the music finds a pulse, with a heartbeat "lub dub" in the bass. Then, about two-thirds of the way through the record, we head into the "finale", with a busy piano idea which fades in very slowly, cutting across the synth. The bass drops out, and a deep drum enters, locking in with the piano. A second piano joins (very Steve Reich now), and the synth comes back - from here on in, the music is a hulking machine, heading our way. At the climax, Swanton(?) drops big bass bombs (terrific on good speakers/headphones), and from there, things slowly tail off. The pianos, drum and synth fade away, leaving the bass and, finally, just a wash of cymbals.

Live, The Necks are known for impressive displays of stamina. I've no idea if those pulsing pianos and drums were set down in single takes, but the final third of this record gives a good idea of their more muscular mode. Listening again to Aether just now, it still seems unlikely that this is where the music will end up. Ultimately, though, I've always found the journey from Morton Feldman-like mystery to ecstatic, pounding minimalism totally convincing. For me, it's a special record - have a listen here (my attempts to describe the music inevitably fall short).

(1) Quoted in Shand, John - Jazz: The Australian Accent, pg. 98

(2) From a Guardian article

(3) From the Uncut magazine review of the year 2023

(4) The Uncut article above offers some clues about how Aether was put together. Apparently, the band played to click tracks at two different tempos, which may well account for some of this rhythmic unpredictability.

(Record 2 is Bang On A Can play Eno's Music For Airports. Coming as soon as I've written it).