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Track Listings
| 1. Fatal |
| 2. Buoyant |
| 3. Abillera |
Product Description
Review
A better title for this CD would be Alchemist, because The Necks have yet again succeeded in turning base metals (i.e. standard musical ingredients) into gold.
Chemist introduces a slight wrinkle with three tracks of approximately 20 minutes each (instead of the more typical single long track favored by the group), but all the usual elements are here; deep bass ostinati, supple percussive pulse and roiling piano arpeggios (heavy on the sustain pedal). Still, the little touches and treatments are what elevate a Necks release to a higher level of listening pleasure.
The funky opening "Fatal" adds occasional guitar textures and a distant, soulful organ drone, along with discreet electronic whooshes and small bursts of white noise. The more minimalist second piece, "Buoyant", begins with randomly generated oscillator beeps, later insinuates the barely perceptible ringing of an alarm bell, and altogether creates a spare but highly charged musical dream state.
"Abillera", the final track, coaxes the sounds of a hammered dulcimer (among other things) out of the piano and plays around with phasing in pleasantly disorienting fashion suggestive of early Steve Reich. Impeccable ear candy, from start to finish. --Bill Tilland
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Product Description
Suave 2006 album! Three elongated instrumental pieces from the local minimal jazz 'n' sound-sculpting legends.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Amazing music, must be heard on headphones, preferably staring out of the window on a long journey. Proper thinking music, you forget it's on and it just becomes the soundtrack to your brain. And when you do remember whats happening to your ears, its a beautiful realisation! First track is kicking straight off, the other two take a while but they get there. If you like this try 'Hanging Gardens' 1 song 1 hour! Wicked!
5 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
another excellent new cd by the necks. this time giving us three shorter tracks rather than the one 60m one. Originally i thought this may be a "rip" off of the previously released 26m "chemist" track which is available on a compilation in Australia. But no! three new tracks with Fatal being the best and very different/dissonant in places from the last few necks tracks. secodn track being more in the mosquito vein but very good, and the third track i've not had chance to hear yet.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Totally mesmerizing and hypnotic.
7 Aug 2006
Format:Audio CD
The Necks are one of those rare bands that we could literally listen to forever. Their sound is just so perfectly hypnotic and so well suited to extended listening. If they invented a new format, where a band could release say, a 24 hour long song, the Necks are the first band we would think of. In fact they actually have played a 24 hour show. We keep hoping it will get released, although the epic scope might be lost split up over 24 discs.
This here is the Necks 13th release in about 20 years. And for a band to stay true to their sound for that long, while remaining viable and listenable and exciting is testament to the Necks' unbelievable skill. F
or those new to the Necks, imagine a three piece jazz ensemble, bass, drums and piano (although, on Chemist, for the first time ever, guitar is introduced, played, oddly enough by drummer Tony Buck), who specialize in extended longform pieces. Ultra minimal, slowly shifting epics, a single riff, a single motif, repeated and looped and subtly colored over the span of ten minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes even 24 hours. Totally mesmerizing and hypnotic.
Chemist is the most rocking Necks record we can remember. At least the opening 20 minute track. The groove is much more upfront, driving, propulsive, like a stripped down jazzed up Can or Faust. Loping, groovy, mesmeric, small flurries of piano drift and flutter over a super solid bass and drums groove. In fact, this almost sounds like a jazzier version of Finnish drone rockers Circle. The same sort of endless riffing and perfectly propulsive rhythm. The second track is much more spare and straight up jazzy, a soft shimmery shuffle, the final track while not quite as aggressive as the opener, does have a similarly relentless rhythm that turns the jazzy drift into something almost 'rocking'. Hard to say this is our favorite Necks record, as we pretty much love them all, but this is definitely the most aggressive and thus pushes a different set of buttons. Necks fans obviously need this. But some of you Circle / Salvatore fans who are up for something a little more dark and jazzy and moody might just dig this A LOT.
This here is the Necks 13th release in about 20 years. And for a band to stay true to their sound for that long, while remaining viable and listenable and exciting is testament to the Necks' unbelievable skill. F
or those new to the Necks, imagine a three piece jazz ensemble, bass, drums and piano (although, on Chemist, for the first time ever, guitar is introduced, played, oddly enough by drummer Tony Buck), who specialize in extended longform pieces. Ultra minimal, slowly shifting epics, a single riff, a single motif, repeated and looped and subtly colored over the span of ten minutes, 30 minutes, 60 minutes even 24 hours. Totally mesmerizing and hypnotic.
Chemist is the most rocking Necks record we can remember. At least the opening 20 minute track. The groove is much more upfront, driving, propulsive, like a stripped down jazzed up Can or Faust. Loping, groovy, mesmeric, small flurries of piano drift and flutter over a super solid bass and drums groove. In fact, this almost sounds like a jazzier version of Finnish drone rockers Circle. The same sort of endless riffing and perfectly propulsive rhythm. The second track is much more spare and straight up jazzy, a soft shimmery shuffle, the final track while not quite as aggressive as the opener, does have a similarly relentless rhythm that turns the jazzy drift into something almost 'rocking'. Hard to say this is our favorite Necks record, as we pretty much love them all, but this is definitely the most aggressive and thus pushes a different set of buttons. Necks fans obviously need this. But some of you Circle / Salvatore fans who are up for something a little more dark and jazzy and moody might just dig this A LOT.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Masterpiece!
12 Jan 2009
Format:Audio CD
Amazing music, great on headphones, preferably staring out of the window on a long journey. Proper thinking music, you forget it's on and it just becomes the soundtrack to your brain. First track is kicking straight off, the other two take a while but they get there. If you like this try 'Hanging Gardens' 1 song 1 hour! Wicked!
2 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Wah! I Want My Money Back
19 Dec 2006
Format:Audio CD
Three 20-minute songs with maybe 2 minutes of material between them. Repeating the same simplistic drum rhythm and bass line for 20 minutes doesn't equal "hypnotic" for me, it equals boredom. It is not a good sign when you begin fast-forwarding on the first listen....
Neu! mined this vein a long time ago, and did it much better.
Neu! mined this vein a long time ago, and did it much better.
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