Travel The Necks Artist

Over 34 years, Australian trio {|the Necks|} -- pianist/keyboardist {|Chris Abrahams|}, drummer/electric guitarist {|Tony Buck|}, and bassist {|Lloyd Swanton|} -- have forged a compelling, exploratory, and singular musical language. Often categorized... Read more

Over 34 years, Australian trio {|the Necks|} -- pianist/keyboardist {|Chris Abrahams|}, drummer/electric guitarist {|Tony Buck|}, and bassist {|Lloyd Swanton|} -- have forged a compelling, exploratory, and singular musical language. Often categorized as a jazz piano trio, they've essentially reinvented that configuration in their own image with captivating, difficult-to-categorize instrumental music. {|Travel|} follows 2017's {|Unfolded|} in offering four side-long cuts spread across a double LP. This music -- impeccably recorded and mixed by longtime collaborator {|Tim Whitten|} -- documents the trio's recent rehearsal habit: They start each studio encounter by playing an extended improvisation for roughly 20 minutes. These recordings are some of those improvs played live to tape, then appended with minimal post-production edits and overdubs. Signal is initially straightforward but wanders wide. {|Swanton|}'s incessantly repetitive double bass vamp is the anchor. {|Buck|} hovers behind, pairing ride cymbal and rim shots while syncopating the rhythm. {|Abrahams|} explores Middle Eastern and North African modalism on piano, and on organ layers nebulous chord voicings onto mysterious note clusters. He and {|Buck|} continually circle back to ground themselves in {|Swanton|}'s vamp. The flow becomes intense as {|Swanton|} pulls out a bow, and {|Buck|} adds snare breaks. Forming is a slow brooding burn. Its single-piano-chord foundation is broken up by {|Abrahams|} into individual notes before he reconstructs it in alternating resonant tones and timbral combinations. {|Buck|} whispers, cajoles, and encourages with fluttering tom-toms and cymbal washes. {|Swanton|} abstractly combines harmonic drones with dark, taut chords. At nine minutes, {|Abrahams|}' right hand pointillistically vamps directly from them. He cascades around {|Buck|}'s beats, creating an alternate dynamic. Imprinting finds the players disguising the organic sounds of their instruments, initially. As {|Buck|} builds a circular ceremonial pattern with low-tuned toms, {|Swanton|}'s arco bass sounds akin to a muted cornet. {|Abrahams|} almost indecipherable electric piano notes slide in, then commingle in a counter vamp of fat, shimmering chords, layered inside a noir-ish sounding Hammond B-3, producing a wealth of tonalities for the trio to investigate. Strangely, it resembles {|Jon Hassell|}'s {|Aka/Darbari/Java: Magic Realism|} and the latter half of {|Miles Davis|}'s Shh/Peaceful simultaneously. Closer Bloodstream commences with an organ fugue over a seemingly breathing arco bass drone. {|Abrahams|} begins comping on piano, running through blues and modal post-bop, then threads in a bounty of spooky, almost otherworldly organ. {|Buck|} enters at six minutes with thunderous, rolling snares. Then he drops out, allowing {|Abrahams|} to assert harmony before the drum kit returns with thudding tom-toms and crisp, reverbed cymbals. {|Swanton|} adds electronic treatments to his droning bass. {|Buck|}'s addition of a warmly distorted electric guitar adds ballast, texture, and poignancy. Despite the change in m.o., {|Travel|} is very much a {|Necks|} album and lines up seamlessly with the trio's vast catalog. It blossoms with new ideas, fluid spontaneity, and fresh ideas. For newcomers curious about the long-standing trio's music, {|Travel|} is a truly excellent place to begin. ~ Thom Jurek Less