The Necks - Bleed (Northern Spy, 2024)

By Paul Acquaro

You must not skip ahead to minute 39:30 of Bleed. Let it build, or rather, let it kind of sizzle expectantly until the aforementioned, sublime final three minutes. These closing moments, where guitar, piano and bass truly meet in total agreement is something you need to earn. The ideas are simple, notes from the guitar's middle register ring out singularly, though sometimes overlapping, while the piano plays a slow sequence of bright open-ended chords and the bass lays down sparse deliberate anchoring tones.

In some magical convergence, this final passage draws the 39 minutes and 30 seconds of music that leads up to it to a logical finale. Until this, the music has been trickling slowly, like gentle drops of water dripping from craggy rock formations in a subterranean cavern, sometimes collecting into streams, but mostly single drips of sound. Tony Buck's drums offer ephemeral statements, and his guitar playing injects new textures. Chris Abrahams' piano, generally the source of the drip, leaks single, pure notes to the cave floor, which form into small, reflecting pools, while Lloyd Swanton's bass vibrates throughout, generating ripples in the surface tension.

It takes time, as music from the Necks typically does, to form. In fact, those three shimmering final moments are the second most 'formed' that Bleed contains. However, this formless structure is absolutely absorbing. Do not jump to minute 14:30 either, where the percussion wells between the layers of trickling piano and the bass sways pendulously. Definitely make sure, too, that you do not start listening at the 20 minute mark when inquisitive arpeggios from the piano are punctuated by the bass, seeming to be announcing the discovery of a new musical vein, which they may (or may not) reach eight minutes later with Buck's help. No, Bleed is a single piece, meditative and beautiful, quietly demanding that you hear the natural beauty in both the notes and the overtones.