WHEN pianist Chris Abrahams mentions using a stopwatch during the recording sessions for The Necks’ debut album Sex, the entire undulating history of the experimental trio snaps into crackling formation. The timepiece is a perfect image for the discipline required of creating one single, subtly changing hour-long track, a form true of most (but not all) of their albums.
It began in Sydney in 1987, when The Necks formed as a way for Abrahams, bassist Lloyd Swanton and drummer Tony Buck to improvise with each other. They didn’t intend to perform live, an arresting thought now given the reputation they would gain for legendary live shows. But while practising at the University of Sydney, a staff member overheard them and liked it so much that she offered them a slot in an afternoon concert series. Primarily piano, drums and bass, with occasional electronics and other instruments, their music is distinctly beautiful, a singular blend of jazz, ambient, and avant-rock that hums with exquisite, glacial shifts.
“It’s unknown when we start where we’re gonna go,” Abrahams says. This is perhaps the key to their appeal, the exhilarating allure of striding forward without a plan and creating something uniquely memorable every time. This year’s is their 19th (!) studio album – No 21 in our best albums of 2023 countdown – and possibly one of their best yet, four spellbinding pieces that document the form in which they’ve been rehearsing lately, each studio session beginning with a 20-minute improv. It marks a return to the four-track structure they first explored on , but the work of The Necks is never done. As Swanton says, “A mother rabbit has the ability to carry a second pregnancy, conceived well after the first one. It’s the same with our recordings.”
