The Necks

The Australian trio The Necks, like each of its members, is legendary, with improvisations that develop and build, via a tantric restraint, into intense and moving epics. Until you’ve heard The Necks, you don’t know how powerful one piano note, one stunted drum fill or one bowed bass line can be; after you’ve heard The Necks, a band whose formula seems as simple as that of water, the rest of music feels weighty and overcomplicated and maybe even cumbersome. Together, drummer Tony Buck, bassist Lloyd Swanton and pianist Chris Abrahams turn tiny bits of sound into resplendent statements.

To wit, as best as I can recall, I’ve cried four times while watching live music. Two of those times have been with the band Spiritualized, and the others have been at the Bijou Theatre, in Knoxville, Tenn., while watching The Necks. Here’s what I said for Pitchfork Media after witnessing the bands first American show, in America in 2009: “Earlier in the evening, Swans’ Michael Gira also acknowledged the Big Ears performance he’d seen by the improvisational trio the Necks as one of the best sets of music he’d seen in a long time. He was absolutely right: The Necks’ two Knoxville sets—Saturday, around midnight, as a trio and Sunday, early in the evening, as quartet with the alien-breathing New York clarinetist and saxophonist Ned Rothenberg—were two of the best hours of music I've ever heard. Imagine a pristine, polished automobile at the top of a tall hill slowly releasing its foot break and steadily speeding through the descent. Saturday, near the bottom of the hill, the car’s parts rattled loose with drummer Tony Buck's huge snare swipes echoing throughout the hall and against the rest of the trio's piano tides and bass washes. Sunday evening with Rothenberg, the band stood on the brakes, halting the metaphorical car’s progress into a creep—no explosions or big bangs, just a torpid, gorgeous allusion to one. Together, the sets comprised an exhilarating, hypnotic look at the crooked line between complete fulfillment and conscious frustration, music so tense and transcendent you could have listened to nothing else all weekend and been completely satisfied.”

More than two years later, I stand by those words fully. I’ve rarely seen a band with such control over its sounds and intention. The Necks’ appearance at Hopscotch marks the beginning of their third American tour; witness these true legends and inspirations start another perfect journey. —Grayson Currin