Live Review: The Necks

Just as the elves toil all year making Christmas presents, so too do The Necks toil to bring us their January shows at the Corner Hotel. The trio have been heading south around this time for quite a few years and it is always worth the wait.

Chris Abrahams (piano), Tony Buck (drums) and Lloyd Swanton (bass) forego many common musical structures, with their instrumental tracks often lasting longer than half an hour. In this case they choose to perform just one expansive piece in each of the two sets – each worthy of a separate album. The length of the pieces allow for a slow layering of sounds and intensities with subtle, almost imperceptible variations. This takes us on a journey where the audience moves forward, not towards any fixed goal (such as the next four-minute single), but for the experience of the journey itself. It is a rare pleasure to be present with such extensive pieces, whose delicacy would easily be lost amidst other distractions.

Readers might be familiar with The Necks through their soundtrack to the haunting Australian film, The Boys. This music is perfect for cinema, not because of its instrumental nature, but because of the atmospheres they create. More open than the tight structures of Michael Nyman and less cinematic than Philip Glass, at times the performance briefly approaches the droning oscillations of a horror film. This, however, is a minor point they pass through, before ending the piece with a scrape in space.

Flat, red light bathes the stage, as this performance has no need for lighting tricks or special effects. Ambient beginnings in the second set soon give way to more familiar, fast-paced playing through long sequences. Shifting through a series of holding patterns and plateaus allows the musicians to articulate their separate instruments and then blend the sounds together; first tending towards and then stepping back from the wall of sound. These careful modulations explore both what the instruments are known for, as well as what they are capable of achieving. 

Good improvisation doesn't just happen, but with their jazz backgrounds, so much time together and over 15 discs to their name, Abrahams, Buck and Swanton have built up a close rapport. This interaction is, arguably, something best experienced live, where the beauty of the individual instrument is present, but is second to the conversation built amongst them. Gentle cascades and a long piano interlude create spaces and places in which it is easy to loose track of time, before finally increasing in intensity to a beautiful finish.