Playing
for Time
Mosquito/See Through
by The Necks
ReR Megacorp, London, UK, 2004
Audio CD-ROM, NECKS 4/5, $22.00
Distributors website: http://www.rermegacorp.com.
Reviewed by René van Peer
Bachlaan, The Netherlands
r.vanpeer@wxs.nl
Mosquito/See Through is the fourth
title of the Australian trio, The Necks,
on the ReR label. Characteristically,
each CD is around an hour long, and consists
of one continuous piece of music that
seems to follow a clear and well-defined
path. The two disks in this latest release
are no exception to thatto
a certain extent, I must add. The music,
played on keyboards, percussion, and bass,
proceeds at an unhurried pace and is laid
down with care and concentration. Each
piece moves along a more or less straight
road. On Mosquito, the axis around
which the music progresses, consists of
apparent doodling on small wooden or bamboo
percussion (it sounds like an angklung
being manipulated at random) and in the
high register of the piano, in alternation,
but with some overlap; Lloyd Swanton's
bass comes in after several minutes, playing
only one tone twice at not absolutely
regular intervals.
Later a keyboard enters with cycles of
chord sequences, and drummer Tony Buck
lightly but emphatically starts playing
a cymbal, coming up and subsiding again.
At this point one quarter of the piece
has gone by. Still later a single high
note, played in rapid reiteration, comes
slowly into view, and regular beats on
the bass drum join in. These are all transparent
layers, but the combinations of elements
that are foregrounded keep shifting. Sometimes
one or more of the layers gets temporarily
removed, bringing the process back on
a slim, wispy trail. Then the music gathers
momentumthe bass accelerates
and starts adding the octave of its pedal
tone, the chord sequences intensify, ever
so slightly; the pats on the cymbal quicken
and acquire more rustle, the spacing becomes
denser. After some time this relative
tension subsides again, and the trio is
more or less where they started out. More
or less, because a rhythmic scratching
and rattling comes in, rounding the piece
off.
What makes See Through different
from the other pieces is the relatively
long stretches of near silence that intersect
it. It starts off with elements that are
even more basic than those in Mosquito.
Handbells rattle dimly, Tony Buck's cymbals
hiss in waves, there's a hint of bowed
bass in the background, Chris Abrahams
weaves undulating runs on the piano. Then,
after six minutes, the music falls away,
to pick up again a minute later. This
time the bass is bowed at a higher pitch,
adding another a bit later. Buck plays
two different cymbals. Abrahams adds another
higher layer of notes on his piano. And
again the music stops. For three minutes,
a plane just audible in the distance.
The music starts afresh, with four separate
piano lines occurring together, one growling
in the lowest register, while Swanton
bows one protracted note. With the oncoming
and subsiding piano phrases and Buck's
work on the cymbals the music moves in
waves of different length and scope, rippling
and heaving at the same time. Then, all
instruments fall back, except for the
cymbals played in an even roll by Buck,
who triggers another run with a bang on
a gong. Now the bass has more freedom
of movement. A phantom note floats through
the music. Heavy accentuated rolls on
the cymbals alternate with quick phrases
on the piano, while another piano line
wreathes and wends an irregular path.
The mood, which has been detached and
searching, almost turns into a kind of
yearning. Then, after a last bout of silence,
Buck applies his sticks to the snare drum,
sided by the two cymbals. With long bowed
notes in different registers Swanton rubs
shoulders with the piano phrases adding
a resonating ring to them, until only
the decaying spectral glimmer of the open
piano strings is left, and silence takes
up center stage definitively. Another
hour has passed, nothing much seems to
have happened, but it is a captivating
virtually nothing.
This music defies categorisation. The
instrumentation would suggest jazz, but
the sound of the trio does not, and neither
does the structuring of the music. The
sparse components that constitute each
piece keep recurring throughout, and yet
it is not repetitive or minimal music.
Especially on this double set there are
no clear time signatures. Compared with
earlier albums Mosquito/See Through
is stripped of all abundance, and
yet a gratifying lushness of sound glows
through its apparent austerity. The music
floats on the currents and tides. It is
detached, in a decidedly warm sense. It
doesn't tick, but it is playing for time,
lifting it up, dispersing it, setting
it adrift. For an hour apiece. Such are
the very rich hours of The Necks.