Open

The Necks’ single-track new opus is a slow, ruminative, stunning piece of work. LUKE TELFORD savours every aspect of it.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] “It’s a slow-building kind of art, but often things that are close to the sublime have a different time scale, and a different unfolding.” – James Turrell

The Necks are good at finding unlikely beauty in simple themes. Once they settle on an idea in a live set, they repeat it, focusing carefully on its details, interrogating it gently but diligently over the period of around an hour.

Their music demands a very particular kind of attention. It encourages you to surrender the way you listen. If you bring too many expectations to the experience, you run the risk of coming away disappointed or bewildered. To enjoy it, you just need to be patient and trust that the music will show you something in its own way.

The trio’s new record Open takes a similar tack to 2009’s Silverwater. Both records take the form of a slow-moving frieze of moods that dissolve into one another. This album has none of the bluster of its predecessor though – it’s contemplative, tender and peaceful. Each movement resonates sympathetically with those that surround it.

“You can fade in and out if need be, which means it can feel extraordinarily different each of the first dozen times you hear it.”

It can be difficult to notice transitions even if you’re paying careful attention, but this may be beside the point. This is music that you can fade in and out of if need be, which means Open can feel extraordinarily different each of the first dozen times you hear it. Drummer Tony Buck’s pensive guitar is easy to miss on the first pass, as are the eerie synth textures that dawn quietly over a number of sections like a cloud of locusts across the glowing dusk.

In a recent interview in The Wire, Buck noted that the band “wanted a sense of suspended time and space on the record.” Open certainly feels open. Not like a door or a receptive person, but like the sky. More than any other Necks record, it trades in implied spaces. Take the cavernous hollow that opens at around the 34-minute mark – suddenly the intimacy of the previous section is lost in a foreboding well of echo. Chris Abrahams’ synthesiser occasionally evokes open rural spaces, recalling the noise of a burbling stream or distant bird chatter. At one point, it feels akin to a glowering cloud of fog rising out of the land to engulf you.

The record’s nature brings to mind the work of American artist James Turrell. In the above quote, Turrell is talking about one of his skyspace installations – rooms that are built with the purpose of framing the sky and its light as a form of art. Skyspaces are designed for quiet contemplation. Turrell’s intention is for occupants to sit in them over an extended period and contemplate the way the changing light coming through the ceiling colours the mood of the room.

In making light the object of his work, Turrell is prompting people to reassess how they perceive. That notion resonates with The Necks’ modus operandi, and this album in particular. Open implores you to slow down, take care to observe the beauty in the gradual flux of your surroundings and reap the tiny rewards that such attention brings.

“Yielding to its ruminative pace rewards you with endless detail.”

Like Turrell’s skyspaces, this is a slow music that demands a great deal of time to hear properly, but yielding to its ruminative pace rewards you with endless detail – the spritely resonance in the overtones of Buck’s cosmic monochord, for example, or the synths’ eldritch presence. Similarly, it takes a while to fully appreciate the bliss of the album’s last 10 minutes – here, cymbal frequencies and crepuscular snatches of shaken percussion coat Lloyd Swanton’s rapidly bowed bass chords and Abrahams’ jubilant piano runs. But the cumulative effect is a kind of transcendent stasis, a liminal state of blissful relief much greater than the sum of its parts.

Open’s gradual cycle instils an extraordinary sense of peace in the listener – the kind you experience after lying in the mid-afternoon sun for a few hours. On waking, you almost feel as though you’ve assumed some of our bright star’s glow, and you’re carrying it with you into the gathering cool of the evening. It’s that feeling that Open exudes. It’s a stunning piece of work.

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‘Open’ is out now through Fish of Milk/Fuse (Aus/NZ), ReR Megacorp (Europe/Japan) and Northern Spy (North America). Tour dates for 2014 below.

Fri, Feb 7 – Byron Bay Community Centre, Byron Bay, NSW
Sat, Feb 8 – Brisbane Powerhouse, Brisbane, QLD
Sun, Feb 9 – The Gov, Adelaide, SA
Mon, Feb 10 – The Ellington Jazz Club, Perth, WA
Tues, Feb 11 – The Ellington Jazz Club, Perth, WA
Mon, Feb 17 – The Corner, Melbourne, VIC
Tues, Feb 18 – The Corner, Melbourne, VIC
Wed, Feb 19 – The Corner, Melbourne, VIC
Thurs, Feb 20 – Lizottes, Newcastle, NSW
Sat, Feb 22 – Street Theatre, Canberra, ACT
Mon, Mar 3 – Sydney Opera House, Sydney, NSW