Three is not the third album by Australia’s premiere minimalists The Necks, it’s their twenty-first. I’m fairly sure that the title comes from the number of tracks that make up this upcoming release, and if you keep up with this band (if you don’t, you should), then you know they rarely stuff a record with more than two, discreet tracks. The last time they had this many is… when was it, Chemist from 2006?
But in experiencing Three, one doesn’t get the sense that much else has changed in a formula that’s made this trio the owners of one of most remarkably consistent/consistently good discographies of the last quarter century. Yes, like Chemist, these tracks run about twenty minutes a piece instead of the usual, hour-long single. And yes, the songs end much the same way they begin, i.e., there isn’t as much development as what you’d hear over a Necks sixty minute track. But there’s no mistaking that you are hearing a Necks performance: a hand-made, persistent groove, intricate layering and a sonic narrative that unfolds at a glacier pace, which cleverly serves to build up the anticipation and rewards putting your ear close to the music.
Some elements of “Bloom,” such as Tony Buck’s African-inspired percussion and Lloyd Swanton’s primary acoustic bass line, are those repetitive parts that establish an infrastructure in which Chris Abrahams’s piano operates. Abrahams later lays on a coat of synthesizer that slightly increases the drone quotient on this one-note song.
“Lovelock” floats, not pulses, with vaguely industrial, dissonant washes in the background and overall resembling the phenomena of waves crashing and receding. However, the best is saved for last: Swanton’s bass comes out from the shadows for “Further” (video above), syncing nicely with Buck’s calypso-flavored 5/4 march richly decorated by ringing percussion. Abrahams organ positioned on the periphery of perception inserts a little soul into the number.
Every Necks album is a plot twist in a long-running musical riddle and Three keeps the story very much alive for one of the most singular bands in contemporary music.
Three bows on March 27, 2020 and coming from Northern Spy Records
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