On their 30th anniversary tour, jazz improvisers The Necks will play a number of shows next month, including a residency at Cafe Oto.
They will also appear at Manchester’s Band on the Wall on November 8 and play a special eight-hour set at Bimhuis in Amsterdam on November 20. The trio of Chris Abrahams, Lloyd Swanton and Tony Buck do not pre-meditate on performances – all of which are improvised entirely in the midst of performance. The band prefer to improvise around the acoustics of the venue that they are in – Lloyd Swanton explained in an interview with tQ that: “[They] sound out the room acoustics as [they] create the piece, so it’s very self-referential.”
As a result of this commitment to producing new work on a nightly basis, The Necks have released 18 albums. Collaborations have included Brian Eno, Swans, Evan Parker, Karl Hyde, Leo Abrahams amongst other names. Their most recent album, Vertigo, was released in 2015 and was ranked at 93 in our Albums Of 2015 list.
The band’s studio work is markedly different, with the 2013 album Open being described in one tQ review as involving ‘almost countless layers of hour-long overdubs – piano, organ, recordings of crepuscular insects or distant playgrounds.’
Tickets for the 30th Anniversary Cafe OTO residence have sold out save for a matinee show on November 6, but tickets are still available for their Manchester performance at Band on the Wall at and their Amsterdam performance at Bimhuis.
