Drive-By
by The Necks
ReR Megacorp, Thornton Heath, UK, 2003
(CD)
£11.50
http://www.rermegacorp.com.
Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher
Saginaw Valley State University, University
Center MI 48710 USA
mosher@svsu.edu
In the midst of the overheated 1970s
muscular glam rock and the whirl of the
disco dance floor, the German synthesizer
band Kraftwerk appeared and presented
a cool, novel travel experience in "Autobahn",
providing a driving beat in all senses
of the word. Soon after, this reviewer
remembers nocturnally speeding across
flat, southern Ontarios Highway
401 in a big gold Buick, the synth-powered
Donna Summer/Giorgio Moroder collaboration
"I Feel Love" cooing over the
radio into the wheatfield night, the song
pulsing in time to the click of the seams
in the highway. The Necks continue that
sort of automotive evocation in Drive-By,
an hour-long single track CD, packaged
in a clear white cover befitting a Fish
of Milk production. The Necks (http://www.thenecks.com)
are an Australian band that has recorded
nine albums since 1987. They consist of
Chris Abrams on piano, Tony Buck on drums,
and Lloyd Swanton on bass.
Early on, Drive-By reminds one
of old-school technothink
Tontos Expanding Headbandas
a synthesizer flutters atop a heartbeat
bass, emitting symmetrical two- and four-note
runs. The music and beat remain both subtle
and restrained, a slow build-up until
it is positively loping along. Little
dreamy piano tinkles enter, the entire
effect still ambient like Brian Eno or
Harold Budd. Then Chris Abrams adds cool
piano chords reminiscent of 1960s British
television jazz or Joe Jacksons
later revival of the style, and then B3
organ. Tony Buck adds snare drum and high
hat cymbals, then tabla and the full,
ambitious exercise of his trap set.
Drive-By sounds like a movie, perhaps
soundtrack to gentle scene in a better
remake of J.G. Ballard's Crash,
the great novel on the erotics of automotive
destruction. This may be because The Necks
are experienced in music for films; their
soundtrack to Rowan Woods' 1998 movie
The Boys was nominated Best Musical
Score in the AFI Awards and Australian
Guild of Screen Composers Awards. At one
point in Drive-By something that
sounds like a four-in-hand carriage trundles
by.
The trip The Necks take us on is deceptively
simple, and time passes along with the
miles. If I were dancing, I probably wouldnt
find it irritating that the work is a
bit too long; one keeps expecting it to
end, and it doesnt. It finally ends
in crickets chirping, sounding more organic
than the weird looping mechanical chirp
ending Enos "The Great Pretender"
three decades ago. The Necks and the listener
have arrived at terminus, comfortable
albeit a bit dazed in transit.