{"id":355,"date":"2015-11-17T22:51:27","date_gmt":"2015-11-17T22:51:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.z360.com\/blog\/?p=355"},"modified":"2015-11-18T10:14:01","modified_gmt":"2015-11-18T10:14:01","slug":"in-the-church-of-the-necks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/z360.com\/blog\/?p=355","title":{"rendered":"In the Church of The Necks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Necks<\/a>, the Australian jazz trance trio played 4 nights at Cafe Oto November 13th to 16th 2015. Each night they played 2 continuous improvised 50 minute sets to a rapt, reverential and appreciative audience.<\/p>\n

\"001_NecksIMG_0220\"<\/a>

The Necks at Cafe Oto \u00a9 Douglas Cape z360.com<\/p><\/div>\n

To give you some idea of the unique nature of their playing here are my interpretations for each set over the four nights:<\/p>\n

Friday 1 – Walking by a river then nearly drowned in the waves
\nFriday 2 –\u00a0Scratching around to find the power of Rachmaninov<\/p>\n

Saturday 1 –\u00a0Simple – Building – Hypnotic – Incantatory
\nSaturday 2 –\u00a0Birds in an African village later viewed from a huge helicopter<\/p>\n

Sunday 1 –\u00a0The Temple becomes a huge production line that is washed away
\nSunday 2 –\u00a0Starts with a bang and becomes a rhythmic tourbillon<\/p>\n

Monday 1 –\u00a0Millions die when the thunder rolls in
\nMonday 2 –\u00a0The old Steamer beaches and is torn to shreds by nanobots<\/p>\n

The closest antecedent to their style is the classic 1969 Miles Davis album In A Silent Way<\/a>\u00a0which summons a similar ever unfolding rhythm which develops slowly and organically to a quasi religious moment of trumpet satori. However The Necks have taken this template (which was in fact assembled by Miles and Teo Macero from studio edits) and created a unique assemblage incorporating nearly every form of modern music using the simplest of acoustic instruments – piano, bass and drums, to create improvised symphonies. It all seems to start so simply with a repeated loop of percussive sound which slowly builds, but before long you can hear an organ in the repeating changes, there is a sheet of electronic chatter, someone is shouting in a storm, the drums are obviously on a loop, the piano is an automaton…none of which is true. You are actually hearing classical piano, elements of Gamelan, the airport music of Eno, the systems music of Reich and Glass, the trance of The Orb, the chaos of Punk, the ear worms of Pop and the repetitive beats of EDM all working to a new maxim.<\/p>\n

25 Second Timelapse movie of The Necks<\/em>