Австралиялық авангардты джаз триосы: The Necks

Australian avant garde jazz trio

The Necks are an Australian avant garde jazz trio formed in 1987 by founding mainstays Chris Abrahams on piano and Hammond organ, Tony Buck on drums, percussion and electric guitar, and Lloyd Swanton on bass guitar and double bass. They play improvisational pieces of up to an hour in length that explore the development and demise of repeating musical figures. Their double LP studio album Unfold was named by Rolling Stone as "one of the top 20 avant albums of 2017." In 2020, the Necks were listed at number 49 in Rolling Stone Australias "50 Greatest Australian Artists of All Time" issue.

The Necks were formed in 1987 in Sydney by Chris Abrahams on piano and Hammond organ, Tony Buck on drums, percussion and electric guitar, and Lloyd Swanton on bass guitar and double bass. In 1983 Abrahams (ex Laughing Clowns) on keyboards and Swanton on bass guitar were founders of the Benders, a jazz group, with Dale Barlow and Jason Morphett on saxophones, and Louis Burdett on drums; which disbanded in 1985. The band has been described as "offending (successfully) against tradition for the past quarter of a century, [doing so] mostly by occupying the spaces between accepted positions and obstinately refusing to obey genre rules". The group issued their debut album, Sex on the Spiral Scratch label in 1989. It consists of a single track of the same name, which is just under an hour long.). Geoff Winston of London Jazz News described how "Each performance by [the Necks] begins with a blank page which one of the trio will start to fill in to commence the journey, an uninterrupted set of around forty to sixty minutes. There are no rules, no agreements about who will take that lead and about how the discourse will evolve. The only criteria that apply are those of their own impeccably high standards." Typically a live performance will begin very quietly with one of the musicians playing a simple figure. One by one, the other two will join with their own contributions–all three players independent yet intertwined. As the 'piece' builds through subtle micro changes, the interaction of their instruments creates layers of harmonics and prismatic washes of sound that lead some to apply the genre label 'trance jazz'. The Quietus Kate Hennessy found that "any Necks' show is a make or break experience. Some find it cathartic, others buckle and ever the twain shall chafe in the washout. The trio's routine is to play two improvised sets using just piano, double bass and drums: one set relatively calm; the other dispensing sound of escalating intensity for a long hour. Jazz by name but not by nature – if jazz denotes songs that spark at intervals into fine displays of musicianship and tricky timing, after which one claps, drinks, and feels pretty good about the world and the talent in it. No, The Necks plunge listeners to the kinds of violent psychological depths few other bands can achieve at all, let alone all acoustically."

Studio albums by The Necks are also based on improvisations, but the recording process can involve multiple takes and sections which are then edited together into a single composition. Studio recordings often involve extra instrumentation beyond the core piano, bass and drums, including samples, organ (Abrahams), electric guitar (Buck) and appearances by guest musicians. The Necks have never attempted live performance of studio recordings. When they were approached to perform their debut album Sex as part of a series of "classic albums" concerts Chris Abrahams pointed out "That's not how we make music. It would make no sense."

Their soundtrack for The Boys (1998) was nominated for ARIA Best Soundtrack Album, AFI Best Musical Score and Australian Guild of Screen Composers Award. They have also recorded soundtracks for What's The Deal? (1997) and In the Mind of the Architect (three one hour ABC TV documentaries, 2000).