Press Photos
The Necks
by Traianos Pakioufakis
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The Necks
by Nabeeh Samaan
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The Necks
by Nabeeh Samaan
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The Necks
by Nabeeh Samaan
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The Necks
by Jordan Munns
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The Necks
by Jordan Munns
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The Necks
by Devin Oktar Yalkin
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The Necks
by Devin Oktar Yalkin
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The Necks
by Devin Oktar Yalkin
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The Necks
by Camille Walsh Photography
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The Necks
by Camille Walsh Photography
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The Necks
by Camille Walsh Photography
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Live Performance
Recorded at Jazzhouse in Copenhagen, Filmed by Søren Rye, Mixed by Klaus Q Hedegaard
Press Quotes
Geoff Dyer’s book ‘Working the Room’
"(The Necks) are sometimes categorised as a jazz trio - which is fine as long as this is immediately qualified by adding that they've completely re-conceived the idea of the jazz trio."
02/06/2016/by cd2sRichard Williams, The Guardian
"To the often spiky disciplines of minimalism, systems music and free improvisation, this remarkable trio bring a satisfying sense of long-form development... Ascetic in outline, but suffused with a warm humanity, their pieces are studded with minor epiphanies on the way to a larger sense of emotional fulfilment."
02/06/2016/by cd2sLos Angeles Times
"A magic act masquerading as a piano trio, this Australian group delivers long-form improvisations that shift with such patient beauty that it casts a bit of a trance. You'll seldom spend an hour that passes so quickly — and rewardingly."
02/06/2016/by cd2sNew York City Jazz Record
"No other performing unit can reach into a remotely similar sonic area... almost as if their music is disembodied from conventional human touch, arriving from some unknown abstract source."
02/06/2016/by cd2sA Fan
"I love the space you all capture to carry us through time."
02/06/2016/by cd2sHow Much is the Fish? Blog, Review of Concert at Holywell Music Room, Oxford
"The Necks are less a band than they are some gateway to another universe. I've seen them probably half a dozen times and each time they leave me feeling slightly exhausted and disorientated. Maybe a bit like Yuri Gagarin felt on touchdown. I've tried writing about them before and failed miserably, so I won't attempt it again, other than to say they were f**king wonderful."
02/06/2016/by cd2sWFMU, New Jersey, Review of New York Concert
"On this night, one of the first in the new Roulette, ghost sounds engaged in a call and response, channelled by the band through the three innocent instruments (piano, bass, and drums) that acted as their mediums."
02/06/2016/by cd2sTank Magazine, UK
"Critics either have a field day, or a hard time categorising their music....Perhaps the ultimate accolade is that no other band has attempted to emulate their sound - where would they even know to begin?"
02/06/2016/by cd2sHilaire Blog
"The music developing from here in ever widening ripples, shuttling complexities, generating a trance-like energy that had me on the edge of my seat and all my nerves tingling. The Necks held us, for that 45 or 50 minutes, as they journeyed out on their wayward, crisscrossing tracks, finding their way back finally to the point of departure. What a privilege to be there in those moments when something new and unrepeatable is being created."
02/06/2016/by cd2sThe Guardian, UK, Four Star Review of London Concert
"Anyone of a mind to study the mysterious methods of the cult Australian all-improv trio The Necks would need to adopt a football manager's approach – poring over hours of video to work out how pianist Chris Abrahams, bassist Lloyd Swanton, and drummer Tony Buck keep on unpredictably passing the ball and finding each other in space. Their unpremeditated art has a remarkably inclusive appeal."
02/06/2016/by cd2sThe Age, Four Star Review of Melbourne Concert
"After more than 20 years of playing together, the Necks have honed their art to the point where their concerts are like collective meditations, executed with a Zen-like discipline that paradoxically engenders an extraordinary amount of freedom."
02/06/2016/by cd2sLost at E Minor, Review of Newcastle (Australia) Concert
"The way that The Necks build a piece - bit by bit - and then deconstruct it in a live setting, is something I urge everyone to experience if they get the chance. It's unexplainable, it's unclassifiable and it's unattainable unless you're them. Tony, Lloyd and Chris; there are no words.
02/06/2016/by cd2sTelegraph, UK, Five Star Review of London Concert
"Like a vast sound-mass suspended in vibrating, seething stillness, its colour and luminosity changing slowly."
02/06/2016/by cd2sVenue, UK, Bristol Concert Review
"As ever The Necks have been a remarkable sound-bathing experience, a contemporary jazz band from a Tibetan monastery that’s not jazz, really, and not from Tibet either. It is what it is and, I suspect, mostly what you are yourself. Spooky."
02/06/2016/by cd2sBirmingham Post, UK
"The Necks slow the world down... A unique musical experience."
02/06/2016/by cd2sWeser Kurier, Bremen, Germany
"Ecstacy in slow motion... magically euphoric... The Necks' appearance was less a traditional concert than a fascinating opportunity to participate in the pulsating genesis of organic tones and sounds."
02/06/2016/by cd2sNeue Zürcher Zeitung, Zurich, Switzerland
"The three have developed their own unique, unmistakable language. The Necks are, above all, masters of dynamics. One only ever really understands the changes in hindsight."
02/06/2016/by cd2sThe Wire
"Tonal, accessible, and yet profoundly challenging... The Necks are singular... Yielding things no one else does."
02/06/2016/by cd2sWeser Kurier, Bremen, Germany
"Over and over I was caught up in the constant repetition of tonal figures, found myself focussing on the tiniest alterations, without noticing that I had been surrounded by a completely new motif... Like a pearl necklace, threaded together piece by piece, only becoming a piece of jewelry when the end of the string is reached."
02/06/2016/by cd2sThe Times, UK
"It is a fairly safe bet to say that no other group in the world sounds quite like The Necks...extraordinary empathy and discipline."
02/06/2016/by cd2sPitchfork
"(The Necks) draw your attention to the music instead of the means: you never get the idea that they're playing for an hour to prove that they can do it, or to showcase a glut of ideas, but simply to give you the pleasure of focusing on music in extreme detail."
02/06/2016/by cd2sNew York Times
"One of the greatest bands in the world."
02/06/2016/by cd2sSydney Morning Herald
(Pure Scenius) "This was selfless art, with the participants always servants of the musical thread... Australia's inventors of acoustic, jazz-inflected minimalism, The Necks. Beforehand there seemed a danger of the Necks' unique and complete conception being ravaged by any interlopers. But Eno was astute enough to suggest musical contexts in which The Necks could do what they do - and arguably be the music's linchpin - while being embellished with flawless empathy."
02/06/2016/by cd2sThe Guardian, UK
"...Entirely new and entirely now... They produce a post-jazz, post-rock, post-everything sonic experience that has few parallels or rivals. They may teach us to listen in a new way, but they communicate a fierce energy and warmth at the same time. Their music is a thrilling, emotional journey into the unknown. Like seeing a world in a grain of sand, The Necks permit us to hear a whole new world of music in a sliver of sound."
02/06/2016/by cd2sRichard Williams’ book The Blue Moment: Miles Davis’ Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music
"I think the new music I would find it hardest to do without, fifty years after Kind of Blue, is that produced by The Necks... A piano trio, but not like any other piano trio you have heard... There is a great deal of joy in The Necks' music, and it is the more rewarding for being hard-won... Kind of Blue's legacy is apparent in the ease with which The Necks exploit the spaces that were opened up for them all those years ago: spaces in harmony, rhythm and melody, but also spaces in…
02/06/2016/by cd2sJazz Times, USA
"At around the 100-year point in jazz's evolution, conjuring new spirits out of old spells is a difficult mojo to work. But people are doing it - a case in point is The Necks."
20/05/2016/by cd2sFinancial Times, UK
"Absolutely riveting...how three musicians can sound like eighteen is a mystery... extraordinary magical sounds emerged from the ensemble...the way The Necks do this with acoustic instruments is nothing short of miraculous."
20/05/2016/by cd2s