The Necks — Travel

Travel is the twenty-first album from the Australian jazz duo The Necks. It finds the project offering up four around twenty-minute tracks, which are all about repetition, subtle changes, and slowly unfolding/ developing themes.  I’d say it’s certainly one of the project's most minimalistic, at times decidedly abstract release thus far. And I think it’s certainly fair to say it’s a release that needs the right frame of mind and more than a few plays to fully hit home/make an impact.

The release appears on Brooklyn-based Northern Spy- coming as either a double gatefold LP, or CD- I’m reviewing the latter on these. The CD comes presented in a four-panel digipak- on its front cover, we have a sparse and murky picture of what looks like paper arrows with scribbled pen writing on them hung on wires. The inside flap features a murky picture of what looks like a ship letting out water. The rest of the packaging features light mustard colouring, with black texts. I’m guessing that the LP gatefold will be a little more visually involved- though maybe not, as of course this is a very sonically minimal record.
 
The album opens rather daringly with its longest track “Signal” which rolls in at ten seconds shy of the twenty-one-minute mark. It’s built around locked down, set and persistent bass and snaking/ cymbal heavy percussive beat. On top of this, we get piano notation playing out the piece’s melody line- initially, this is fairly active/ flowing, but in time it lessens/thins back. It becomes replaced by a repetitive organ pattern, and the bass/ drums very much lock down into themselves- creating a locked groove. And when the piano finally reappears it feels like a sudden sprinkle of cooling rain on a desert- and there is a slightly more rounding touches to the basses' tone, and (possibly) some micro fills occurring with the drums. With a more grooving slightly piping organ tone also added into the thickening weave of the track, giving the whole thing a sort of slight jiving lost in a desert vibe.

Next up is “Forming”- this opens with slowly cascading/ wondering piano notation, swirling/rushing percussion, and constant organ purr. In time the bass appears in a slowly rounding ‘n’ at times loosely scrabbing manner.  As time moves on the piano starts to become more ornate & tight rolling in its manner- with both the percussion and bass locking down into a tightly tolling ‘rolling hazy. In its last quarter, there is definitely a more oriental feel to the piano elements- as the rest of the elements create a constantly sort rounding ‘n’ bounding sound mass.

Track number three is “Imprinting” and this is one of the more moodily abstracted tracks here. It opens with a mix of several rapid rattling tones(I’m getting an almost repetitive shopping trollers knocking together vibe), wondering & bounding bass tones, and a simmering organ tone. As the track progress, one can make out the occasional cymbal slip, subtle shifting organ hover, and more rapid/detailed bass playing- as well as the occasional piano flourishes ‘n’ runs. With it towards the end almost become busy, tightly waved & dense ethnic funk like….but of course in a decidedly locked down & abstract manner

Finally, we have “Bloodstream” this begins with a wavering slight pitch shifting organ line- slowly but surely around this, we get a buzzing ‘n’ slow bass hum, and steadily rolling’s of piano notation- which have a sort of blues bound gallop to them. At a point, the drums come in too, and once again they are somewhat abstract- as they are like cluttering haze, which at points almost sounds like a couple of antiquated fan hissing ‘n’ rumbling. With more layers of even rolling organ, bass picks, and  piano key bound been added to a great densely dizzying effect
  
As an album Travel is very much the provable grower. It finds the trio taking risks with locked down grooves, abstract- at-points almost noise-like elements, and generally very slowly developing composition. It’s great to see a band like The Necks, who are now in their thirty-sixth year still experimenting with their sound & challenging the listener. All in all a very surprising & unexpected album. For more info