artist: The Necks country of origin: Australia style(s): Ambient jazz, rock, world beat, cinematic essential releases: Sex (1989, Fish Of Milk/Private Music) Next (1990, Fish Of Milk) Aquatic (1994, Fish Of Milk/Carpet Bomb) Hanging Gardens (1999, Fish Of Milk) Chemist (2006, Fish Of Milk)

"Ambient jazz" is a perfect description of what this unique Australian band sounds like. The Necks use the repetition ideas of minimalist composers like Steve Reich and Philip Glass as a foundation, starting with simple patterns and ringing changes on them only very gradually. But in The Necks case the resulting music is ultimately looser thanks to the jazz element, with improvisation of course being that genre's very basis.

Sex is the group's debut, devoted a single hour-long piece of music. It's a strange, bold, ultimately enchanting masterpiece combining simple, repetitive percussion and bass signatures with jazz-style piano improvisation in an ambient context. “Just imagine”, wrote Rolling Stone magazine, “an early, spacey, guitarless Pink Floyd after prolonged exposure to Miles Davis’ Kind Of Blue.” The follow-up album Next literally continues where its predecessor left off, opening with ten seconds of, um, Sex before launching into six new tracks. Additional instruments this time around include guitar, trumpet and saxophone. “Pele” and “The World At War” retain the ambient grace and spare, hypnotic pulse of the previous album. The more upbeat “Jazz Cancer” and “Nice Policeman, Nasty Policeman” both have a certain rude vigor, while the amusing title track owes obvious inspiration to the Byrne/Eno album My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts (1981) with sampled voice fragments woven into a funky, Third World polyrhythms.

On the first two albums the trio's subtly eclectic sound and spare, minimal style is firmly established and a number of their subsequent releases have been no less compelling.

Aquatic and Hanging Gardens are blessed with an alluring cosmic undercurrent, with guest Stevie Wishart’s droning barrel organ on Aquatic being particularly effective. Spacemusic? Or space jazz, perhaps? Forget the labels, suffice to say they're both exquisite listening and masterful exercises in quiet, controlled power.

The equally superb Chemist marks nearly 20 years of recording together and demonstrates the band's continued vitality and ability to create sublime soundtracks of the mind. The filmic "Buoyant" is very sparse and slightly creepy with a sense of expectancy that is never quite resolved. Against a repeating bass signature, ripples of acoustic and electric piano dance over an ever-so-subtle ringing drone. "Abillera" develops into an expansive one-chord jam not unlike Krautrock icons Neu. The ominous but still beautiful "Fatal" sounds so Twin Peaks you can almost see the Dream Man dancing in front of those deep red curtains while Laura Palmer blankly looks on. Abrahams piano playing is at its spacey best here, alternately tickling your ears and gently washing all over you.

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