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| Tim Williams |
Melbourne's Corner Hotel is a landmark for live music. But for a person unfamiliar with its compressed location beneath a railway bridge in Richmond, The Corner is best described by using a popular Australian colloquialism: blink, and you may miss it.
Inside, The Necks' double bassist Lloyd Swanton materialises on stage. He is unceremoniously joined by drummer Tony Buck and pianist Chris Abrahams. The unremarkable presence of this ensemble is curtailed by a descent toward silence from a reverential audience, and a rear video projection. A poetic winter landscape filmed at night and punctuated by the mesmeric flurry of monotonous snow flakes is the visual counterpoint to Swanton's first portentous pluck of one string of his attractive double bass. Situated centre stage, Swanton's fusion with the thump and hum of his instrument becomes the dominant motif of this improvisation. But it is the feline misdemeanor of Buck's wash upon a drum that elevates this composition above suburban back fences and onto rusty rooftops. All scratch and tickle, rip and sickle like accentuation of some crime that has been committed, Buck's stalking left hand is a prelude to the presence of piano-man Chris Abrahams. Initially, it is Abrahams' tinkling of the ivories as usual. Positioned stage right and facing a wall animated by the winter dread of the aforementioned video projection, his precocious piano threatens to fall off stage into a non-refundable void. As an inconsolable lover of the sound produced, Abraham's playing dismantles the unity of the ensemble and scales the extremities of its improvised potential. But this ain't no egotistical trip into one man's heart of darkness. Rather, there occurs a shift in tempo during which The Necks achieve a heightened equilibrium. Abrahams' piano, previously characterised as fragmented sputtering of disengaged self-destruction, transpositions toward a melodious nostalgia for music-hall melodrama. The epiphany it produces is an integrated confession by the band that the crime committed here is a corruption of memory, or a longing for past melodies that can never be retrieved and a consequent betrayal of a musical tradition that once entertained a generation of grandparents. (That is, before The Necks resolved to extend their collective protuberance and enter the realm of the unnameable). Implied, but never explicit, this hypothermic melody wanders lost in a mesh of reverberation. The Necks, and their desire for that which can never again be, is a brutal recognition of the dilemma confronting 21st century music. Post-colonial, post-industrial, and arguably, post-human, a pianist, a double bassist, and a drummer can still get a gig at the humble Corner Hotel and strive to represent musically the prodigious dexterity and insoluble confusion of our time. That is, before the set ends and the band briefly disappears.
Two pots later Swanton, Buck, and Abrahams simply appear once again, and so the music begins. This elliptical presence not only reflects the structure of much of The Necks' music. (Reoccurring notation that transmutes over time). It is elaborated upon by a pictorial contrast between distinctive visual cues that inhabit the rear video projection. The mesmeric snow flurry of an inconsolable winter landscape is replaced by the depth and resonance of an audacious ocean swell. Accidental chimes attached to Buck's drumstick initiate an illiteracy in the music that is reinforced by Swanton's tapping at the neck of his double bass, and this is obsessed upon by Abraham's and his attention to detail. The speed and minutiae of his piano playing is that of manic thoughts unable to comprehend the tedium of some vast expanse. Perspiring, thirsty and parched, the combined affect of this improvisation is that of the outward civility of human beings lacerated by nightmares of the unconscious. Significantly, Swanton's double bass is less the pulse of this performance. Instead, the melody tumbles around in a tepid breeze, is contorted and individualised; a distorted rarefaction of each musician's personality. In apparent accompaniment, Swanton thumps upon the teak body of the double bass. Buck also has reverted to extrapolations upon the physique of his instrument. He taps at the metal rim of one drum while snaring time on another. The standard elliptical structure that substantiated the earlier set is abandoned in favour of a structural adventure that is a daring recognition by the band that there are limitations to the organisation of their music. Startling, if not entirely satisfying for the fair-weather fan, this attempt to extract life from that which is limp is consistent with the stasis that characterised the beginning of the set. Above it all hovers an image of the ocean. As the saying goes, and this can be applied to music, 'Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink'. Until, of course, the ocean swell transmutes toward an irradiated tumescence. The Necks, oscillating between ellipsis and a complete absence of form, find a fissure in their adventure and it is Abrahams who investigates.
At times, Abrahams' hands move so fast that it appears as if his fists have formed into clubs and he is pummeling the keys of his piano. The aforementioned oscillation between form and formlessness is transcended. Swinton's strange carpentry is reminiscent of a mythical tradesman drawing a bow of sand across Atlas' statuesque calf. Buck breaks away, the catatonia of his drumming opens windows into the infinite night. And Abrahams... This man cannot claim to appreciate the piano as any such affectation would horrify the exquisite pretense of the so-called music lover. The affect of this found composition is of strangled nature - desert, sea, sky, and trees - throttled into life. Simultaneously industrial, while finding inspiration in the cacophony of daybreak, the subsequent noise adheres in a sonic hum that is electrifying without being overwhelming. Here, there is no found ending drawn out over an improvised month. Instead, the noise stops as it started. All that remains is a disturbed rumination upon a collision between parallel domains of darkness. An ignorant statement yes, but perhaps, also a question that demands to be asked. Is it possible that The Necks have articulated a musical category that not only resists definition but also, defies description ? You tell me... But to enter the realm of the unnamable is to erase the musical future and eradicate the romance of its past. All takes place in the present and this can only be achieved by improvisation. In layperson's terms, this was one of those performances where you truly had to be there... But if you had have blinked you may have missed it...
The Necks, Corner Hotel, Jan. 10 - 12, Melb.
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