Less than two years after Travel, the slow-moving The Necks are already coming forth with the follow-up. Bleed (LP/CD release October 11, 2024, Northern Spy Records) is another installment of this incomparable Australian trio’s brand of contemporary minimalism, a musical trajectory of remarkably consistent quality peppered with small surprises.
Each Necks album is its own entity but the differences between each one are like the differences within parts of a typical track, distinguished not by one or two major events but through many small, barely perceptible shifts. They’ll be a natural tendency to lump this record with certain other of their records (my personal closest comparisons are Open and Mosquito), but keyboardist Chris Abrahams, percussionist/guitarist Tony Buck and bassist Lloyd Swanton will always add new twists with each release, and you can be certain there are some for their 2024 offering.
For one, Bleed is a single, forty-two minute expedition, markedly shorter than the hour-long slow rides they have largely made their name with but long enough to flesh out plenty of interesting moments. Only now, those moments arrive and depart a little faster.
Abrahams offers up a fragment of a figure, marked more by the silence between the chords than the chords themselves and peculiarly supplemented by softly shimmering electronic effects. There’s no sign of Buck until nearly six minutes in and he formally introduces himself with a snare roll — almost alien within the Necks sound universe — but like Abrahams’ effects, his drums fade in and out of view.
As the key ever so subtly changes, Abrahams’ piano moves slightly from slow-motion accompaniment toward slow-motion improvising. It’s after that when Swanton’s double bass finally enters the scene, also playing notes between wide intervals. Buck’s lightly strummed guitar is lightly sprinkled unobtrusively through the proceedings.
At almost precisely the halfway mark is a brief silence, an intermission before the second half commences, making this effectively a two-part suite. Abrahams’ piano figures at this point are reset, but similarly barren. The stillness is broken up first by Swanton’s itchy, bowed bass and then the distant rumble of a piano being played as if from the inside.
The various modified sounds coming from Abrahams’ keyboards alongside Buck’s non-drums percussion is in some ways a sharp departure from the glacial evolving, minimalist drone the characterizes many other Necks records. But such phases ebb in the usual Necks manner and the last such interval makes way for a gentle, three-way communion between piano, acoustic bass and a soft electric guitar that brings the piece to a tranquil resting place.
The Necks’ Bleed is briefer but there remains plenty of time to insert many small intriguing new twists into their incomparable brand of gradually unfolding instrumental music.
Bleed will be available in digital form on October 18, 2024. Pre-order/order Bleed in your favorite format from Bandcamp.
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