In their career the Necks have accomplished the miracle of making difficult music simple, at the same time they have made even a small cloud of notes and intuitions complex and articulated, going beyond the limits of minimalism. And it is precisely when Chris Abrahams, Lloyd Swanton and Tony Buck cross the borders that the miracle of the unique and self-contained work takes place, “Bleed” is this: a sound artefact delivered to transcendence and pure imagination, fragments of chords and thin rays of light filtered through dusty and broken mirrors.
There are forty-two minutes of barely hinted harmonic entropies, of melodies taken by the hand and abandoned in the void, a hypnotic and bloodless body of sound where the instruments pursue an ascetic yet passionate form of minimal jazz.
In “Bleed” the ephemeral becomes raw material for an atonal suite, which slowly notes of piano, electronics and vaporous percussive sounds try to shake without ever rousing it from its torpor.
The Necks have never been so adventurous and extreme since the days of “Sex”, halfway through they mention a brief silence, but more than cryptic the band's new album is rigorous, prone to digressions on the theme. In an instant the electronics chase away the more traditional instrumentation, to then give way to a chaotic, yet velvety and tender return of piano, percussion and double bass, which finally opens up new horizons and leaves a savory aroma of sound improvisation that is unafraid comparisons.
27/10/2024
Antonio Santini for SANREMO.FM