Thrill Jockey
Reviewed by John Payne
In music, in general, combining high conceptual aims with what we call accessibility (a troublesome concept on its own) is not an easy thing to pull off. My no doubt annoyingly subjective list of musicians who’ve achieved a balancing in this equation (ear-friendliness + modernity) would include, say, Robert Wyatt, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Jon Hassell, Holger Czukay, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Terje Rypdal, Annette Peacock, Diamanda Galás, Coil and the Velvet Underground. This varied bunch shares the notion of basing the work on musical or thematic ideas, and in so doing not skimping on the soul; the goal is a kind of beauty. [Read more…]
How to better classify an improvisational unit such as the Necks? Since the Australian trio perform their music on instruments associated with jazz — acoustic piano, double bass and drums — they tease us with whether or not they ought to be aligned with the severely rule-bound world of jazz at all. Whatever the case, it is hugely satisfying to hear the group’s lack of reverence for the form’s many hallowed conventions. With a healthy, punky boredom about all that, the Necks poke all ye olde shopworn swinging jazz a certifiably new bumhole. 
