Only CDs Is Sounding Like These # 2: The Necks, Hanging Gardens (1999)
A new occasional series - CDs are coming back baby! And I’m here for it. BIGTIME!
I feel like I’ve told my story of discovery around The Necks often enough - but it really has been one of the greatest musical discoveries in my lifetime. They are essentially A genre - as much as a band. And they are one of my favourite genres; forever a go-to.
It was the 2002 Jazz Festival, back when we had proper, meaningful jazz festivals, where the local acts were on the same stages as the international headliners, where it wasn’t about grabbing column inches for a big-name one-off act and show; it was about the full experience. It was about discovery.
And I saw The Necks. I looked them up, read about them, did my research.
Then I sat in the front row, absolutely gobsmacked. Blown away. Changed.
The Necks look like a jazz trio, but they hardly ever sound like one. It’s that nominal lineup - piano, bass, drums. But it’s more about minimalism, about ambient ideas, about improvisation. There are elements of jazz in all of that, and in all of what they do - but they aren’t really a jazz band, per se.
Anyway, I’ve been listening to them ever since. For some 20 years. And any time there is a new Necks album released I buy it, hear it, review it…
And it all started there. That night. At that show.
At half time I bought the only two CDs that were available at their merch table. One of which was 1999’s Hanging Gardens. I’ve been listening to it ever since.
You can’t get the music of The Necks on Spotify - and good on them for that I guess. But you can get to them on Bandcamp and YouTube. I used to have everything by this band, and I’m slowly trying to find it all again.
So just recently, I found Hanging Gardens. There it was in the second-hand/charity shop on the corner of the street where I live. I browse from time to time, I hardly find very much of any value or need - but it’s fun to look. Well, then I found this album. A Necks CD is still $30 in a lot of shops. The one I find - for $1 - has a Slow Boat Records sticker on it. It’s fair to assume it’s my copy I bought from that gig, and then traded in many years later, foolishly, when I thought I didn’t need CDs any longer; when I was committed to vinyl-only.
That’s changed. And it felt like some message-in-a-bottle finding this copy of this particular album. I have bought a couple of other Necks albums recently, so I’m slowly on my way to getting the set back. (And I have their latest on vinyl).
One of the highlights of my life was getting to meet Chris Abrahams, pianist for The Necks (and solo artist in his own right). Not only that, I got to co-interview him on live radio in Sydney. It happened almost by fluke really, fluke of timing.
I consider anything to do with the music of The Necks, a highlight of my life though.
I really do.
