Necks, The – Aether CD

The Necks play jazz that has been stripped of all its excess and re-forged out of the belly of minimal trance club culture. For the first 30 minutes of Aether, the Australian trio drop rhythm altogether, and what remains is just a single chord which emerges and then fades into nothing, again and again alongside small variations on electric piano, bowed double bass and electronics. At the 35-minute point a high-pitched keyboard pattern gradually emerges, and imperceptibly the group swing in to a Steve Reich inspired interlocking pattern, which builds to a climax. It finally subsides into a series of hypnotic cymbal washes. The Necks are drummer Tony Buck, double bassist Lloyd Swanton and pianist Chris Abrahams. Their records and live concerts are all made using the same process; they start with an improvising idea, and then transform the material ever so slowly as each piece progresses. It's a devastatingly simple but original approach.