The Necks’ Travel (Northern Spy), the 19th album by this cult Australian trio, documents their habit of collectively improvising at the start of each working day. With only some light post-production work on each of the four tracks, Signal is perhaps typical of the album. Centred around Lloyd Swanton’s short but insistent bass figure, Chris Abrahams’ zen-like piano notes ripple outwards across a tightly controlled shimmering surface of Tony Buck’s cymbals and clicking rhythms. Like the others, it hovers in the 20-minute zone, possessing a deep-down granular intensity wherein even the smallest shift in phrasing causes significant changes, cathartic instances and moments of profound, lasting beauty. A slow music masterpiece.
Graham Collier’s Down Another Road @Stockholm Jazz Days ’69 (My Only Desire Records) features a septet including future Nucleus/Soft Machine members…
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Prog (Digital) - 1 Issue, Issue 140