Reviews that mention Chris Abrahams
July 26, 2020
Three
Northern Spy NS 126
The Geordie Approach
Shields
DISCUS 84 CD
Negotiating the narrow parameters that join minimalism to mesmerizing are two unconventional trios whose sessions’ allure lies in devising unexpected textures without losing touch with progressive narratives.
Much younger of the groups is The Geordie Approach, which despite its name includes only one player from the UK’s northeast and two Norwegians. Now Leeds-based, the Geordie, guitarist Chris Sharkey, plays in a duo with Mark Sanders and any number of bands. Norwegian drummer Ståle Birkeland plays in groups like the Kitchen Orchestra, while alto saxophonist Petter Frost Fadnes is director of Jazz Studies at the University of Stavanger. There’s no hint of the academic in the trio’s two extended tracks. However the astute use of electronics by the saxophonist and guitarist interpolates unanticipated pulses into the program. Over the course of “North” for instance, the interaction leisurely stretches from drumstick clacks, string shakes and repetitive reed puffs to metrical drum splatters and echoing saxophone wheezes. Mixed with wave form undulations, backing from a pseudo-vocal chorus is suggested as affiliated timbres expand to a crescendo of tremolo patterning then fade. Companion track “South” is louder and tougher, with the percussion rhythms more disjointed though thumping, while organ-like tremolos and spiraling crackles take over the forefront along with backwards running flanges. Although the dissected reed tones and guitar licks are initially distant, by mid-point a groove is established. Melding ratcheting string twangs, simple drum clip-clops that could emanate from a small practice kit, and nasal reed vibrations, the recurring motifs are divided into further unidentifiable noise variables which wiggle to a climax. As the signal processing extraterrestrial pulses and acoustic impulses stake out different parameters clipped drum beats bring them to a defining conclusion. MORE
March 9, 2020
Sink
Mikroton CD 88
Philip Zoubek/Ivann Cruz/Marcin Witkowski
Radium
Helix LX 015
While all analytical musicians have been faced with adaptation to the widening impulses propelled by electronic currents for more than the past half-century, it’s committed improvisers who have used computer-related elements for the most compelling results. Avoiding the impasses of excessively segregated programming, noteworthy sessions result by coupling the properties of electric and acoustic instruments. Radium and Sink are in this lineage. MORE
January 16, 2019
Body
Northern Spy NS 104
After three decades in a constant configuration, it’s not inaccurate to say that the sound of Australian trio The Necks is established – one hour of free improvisations that combine Mesmer and mastery. What distinguishes each session though is how the three – keyboardist Chris Abrahams, bassist Lloyd Swanton and percussionist Tony Buck – almost clandestinely introduce novel elements into the accepted equation, making discs like this one whose sound is very familiar yet subtly distinct. MORE
December 22, 2018
Peggy
ReR Megacorp ReR JRCA
Anything but the chamber music session the instrumentation would suggest – although it was literally recorded in the living room of the CD’s dedicatee, the late Peggy Granville-Hicks – Peggy is instead a first-ever duo recording by two venerable Australian improvisers. Pianist Chris Abrahams of the Necks and Jon Rose, who plays every variety of violins and has worked with Johannes Bauer and Veryan Weston among many others, turn a suite of abstract improvisations inside out as they probe every smidgen of available sound. Recorded in real time without edits, the two progressively propel a sequence of five tracks that get radically tougher and more atonal, culminating in the almost-22½ minute interaction that is “Peggy 6”. MORE
April 7, 2018
176 (Chris Abrahams and Anthony Pateras)
Music in Eight Octaves
Immediata IMMO 11
Pétrole
Refined Pieces for Two Pianos
Pépin & Plume No #
Eve Risser/Kaja Draksler
To Pianos
Clean Feed CF 448 CD
Kris Davis/Craig Taborn
Octopus
Pyroclastic Records PR 03
Scott Walton/Tim Perkis
Applied Cryptography
pfMentum CD 106
Something In The Air: Updating the Conventional Keyboard Duo
By Ken Waxman
Although there were vogues at points from the 1930s to the 1960s for Stride and Boogie Woogie keyboard teams, piano duos have never been as prevalent in jazz as in so-called classical music. Starting in the late 18th Century these programs consisted of performances of works, by among others, Brahms, Schubert, Bartok and Ravel. More recently however with keyboardists cognizant of both notated and improvised music and standard performance configurations liberated, duo piano pieces have become more common in exploratory jazz as these sessions attest. MORE
September 5, 2017
August 22 to August 26, 2017 A consistent French tradition like chewy baguettes, fine Camembert or Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Mulhouse, France’s Météo Festival, now in its 35th year, continues to present exemplary musicians in concert, without the program ever becoming homogeneous. What this means is that while the festival which took place August 22-August 26, was introduced and reached a climax with absorbing and innovative with sets by veteran Imptov saxophonists Evan Parker and Peter Brötzmann, performances which encompassed minimalism, hard-core Free Jazz, electronics, Rock, notated and folkloric music were part of the schedule.
MORE
December 21, 2016
Chris Abrahams & Burkhard Beins
Instead of the Sun
Herbal Conrete Disc 1602
Serge Baghdassarians/Boris Baltschun/Burkhard Beins
Future Perfect
Mikroton Recordings CD 49
Often when dealing with music heavily oriented towards electronics two scenarios are in play. One can imagine a so-called movie for the mind with images suggested by the sounds on disc. Alternately the listener can passively surrender to the performance as an entity, letting it wash over consciousness like white noise in a feedback session. Each of these approaches is suggested by these CDs featuring Berlin-based sound artist/percussionist Burkhard Beins. Alongside fellow Germans Serge Baghdassarians using mixing desk, delays and guitar plus Boris Baltschun’s computer and sampler, Future Perfect was recorded during 2008 and 2009, and then mixed by Baghdassarians and Baltschun during the later year and 2015. It remains in the abstract orbit. Its antithesis, Instead of the Sun, recorded by Australian Chris Abrahams playing synthesizers and electronics plus Beins using percussion and electronics, and subsequently mixed by the percussionist, includes distinctive enough themes so that a pictorial representative is advanced – at least in the mind’s eye. MORE
April 12, 2016
Vertigo
Northern Spy NS 067
By Ken Waxman
Members of the Australian trio, the Necks habitually construct mesmerizing CDs consisting of one extended improvisation. As committed to their musical vision as ensembles such as the Beaux Arts or the Lyric Arts trios were to theirs, after three decades as a band pianist/keyboardist Chris Abrahams, bassist Lloyd Swanton and percussionist Tony Buck can still alter the overall interpretation in such a way that it become like an aural kaleidoscope offering novel facets on each playing. MORE
September 21, 2015
Raft of the Meadows
NoBusiness Records NBLP 80
Lotto
Ask the Dust
Lado ABC Records DL
Attesting to his dual Polish-Australian heritage, double bassist Mike Majkowski’s playing on these trio sessions is bifurcated but refreshingly consistent. A prodigious player with a broad confident tone, Sydney-born Mike Majkowski has lived in Berlin since 2011.
On Raft of the Meadows, like the muscle in a teen idol’s entourage, he focuses his spacious attributes on seconding the sometimes lissome interludes of pianist Chris Arahams, long-time member of The Necks trio. More hard-hitting and not enraptured like much of the Necks sound, the Roil trio, which has been together since 2007, inhabits the area where melodic Jazz brushes up Free Improv. Completing the all-Aussie cast is drummer James Waples, who has performed with Down-under stylists such as saxophonist Dale Barlow and pianist Mike Nock. MORE
June 4, 2014
Tree
Music Moderna M008
Polwechsel
Traces of Wood
hatology 712
Engrossed with exploring the intricate links and disconnections among improvised, notated and electronically generated sounds, Berlin-based percussionist Bukhard Beins is one of the theoreticians of Echtzeitmusik or real-time music. This theory of slowly developing, low-key connections in which drone and quivers are showcased more so than dramatic individual tones, is clearly, if somewhat blurrily, epitomized by Trees. Traces of Wood may be even more notable though. That’s because it captures the mutation of what has been a long-standing ensemble built around horn and string players, to one set apart by a string-percussion partnership. MORE
December 27, 2013
Magda Mayas and Chris Abrahams
Gardener
Relative Pitch RPR 1011
Spill
Fluoresce
Monotype Records Mono050
As she becomes progressively better known, it’s evident that Berlin-based Magda Mayas is one of the evolving masters – or more properly mistresses – of extended keyboard playing. Regularly improvising with fellow sound explorers such as prepared guitarist Annette Krebs from Berlin and Parisian alto saxophonist Christine Abdelnour, the keyboardist has revealed close-listening and participating strategies. Gardener and Fluoresce confirm this; but the CD with her long-time partner, percussionist Tony Buck comes across as more satisfying than the one featuring keyboardist Chris Abrahams, despite him, like Buck, being an Australian plus a member of The Necks. MORE
May 18, 2013
Koopfüberwell
Absinth Records 024
Toering/Varner/Treuheit
Usquert I-XI
Listermusic lm007
Although Fats Waller recorded some Jazz sides on the pipe organ in the 1930s, as did a few other lesser known players later on, the concept of modern organ improvising is associated with the portable the electronic model popularized by Jimmy Smith and others from 1956 onwards. At least, that is, until Free Music came along. Looking for new avenues of expression, adventurous keyboardists tried their hand improvising on mammoth pipe organs that have sat in theatres or churches for years, sometimes centuries. On these CDs, for instance, two German residents have come up with programs which contrast bellowing organ timbres from the multi-pipes acoustic model with distinctive timbres from other instruments, plus in some cases taking into account spatial audio qualities. But there are major differences as well. MORE
March 26, 2013
None of Them Would Remember It That Way
Mikroton cd 13
Lucio Capece
Zero Plus Zero
Potlatch P112
Palpably attempting to transform drones so that their properties can be used as sonic building blocks has long been a preoccupation of Lucio Capece. Because of this, the Argentinean-born, Berlin-based sound maker has, over the past few years, expanded his instrumental arsenal so that he is as often manipulating a sruti box, a double plugged equalizer, a ring modulator and sine waves as soprano saxophone or bass clarinet. The desired result, as these CDs aptly demonstrate, is a polyphonic acoustical environment which transcends hermetic textures to expose ones that are more open and organic. MORE
August 16, 2012
Frost Frost
Bo’Weavil weavil 42 CD
The Necks
Mindset
ReR Necks10
Buried among the resilient, intertwined polyphony which has characterized Australian trio The Necks’ creations over more than a quarter-century is the realization that each member is a first-class originator on his own. That why it’s instructive to compare Mindset, the band’s 16th CD, with Frost Frost, by Roil, a piano trio featuring The Necks’ pianist Chris Abrahams. As soldered as the tremolo patterning and aleatory dynamics of the sometimes-multi-tracked Abrahams are to the solid tempo of bassist Lloyd Swaton and the firm beat and interpolated samples from drummer Tony Buck with The Necks, the Roil CD displays his proficiency in a new setting. MORE
August 16, 2012
Mindset
ReR Necks10
Roil
Frost Frost
Bo’Weavil weavil 42 CD
Buried among the resilient, intertwined polyphony which has characterized Australian trio The Necks’ creations over more than a quarter-century is the realization that each member is a first-class originator on his own. That why it’s instructive to compare Mindset, the band’s 16th CD, with Frost Frost, by Roil, a piano trio featuring The Necks’ pianist Chris Abrahams. As soldered as the tremolo patterning and aleatory dynamics of the sometimes-multi-tracked Abrahams are to the solid tempo of bassist Lloyd Swaton and the firm beat and interpolated samples from drummer Tony Buck with The Necks, the Roil CD displays his proficiency in a new setting. MORE
April 23, 2011
Cooper/Abrahams/Kurzmann/Delius/Thomas/Dafeldecker/Buck
Hammeriver
Mikroton CD 8l
A billet doux – and re-configuration – of the music of one harpist by another, Hammeriver is Australian-in-Berlin Clare Cooper’s interpretation of some of the sounds created by American Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda. The result, as expressed on this CD’s five tracks, is alternatively agitato and moderato sounds. They are notably atmospheric as well as being true to Coltrane’s spiritual ideals, but without being remotely imitative. Generated during one day in a former-GDR radio station recording studio, the sounds encompass Cooper’s graphic scoring of the 1968 Coltrane composition plus the septet’s further alchemic transformation of affiliated sounds through novel improvisational blends. MORE
February 6, 2010
Silverwater
Fish of Milk/ReR Necks 9
Aptly described as mesmerizing, the sonic currents created by Australian trio The Necks sweep listeners along without complaint during any one of the band’s hour-long, time-suspending performances. The audience at the trio’s Music Gallery show in late January could testify to that. Yet Silverwater – named for an industrial suburb of Sydney – pulses with even more textures, since with overdubbing and granualization multiple and fungible sonic layers can be exposed.
That means that the swelling and jabbing organ tones played by Chris Abrahams that quiver throughout this one-track CD to reach a crescendo of almost visual three-dimensional polyphony, sometimes operate in tandem with knife-sharp piano chording – also played by Abrahams. Additionally, samples and patching split Tony Buck’s percussion skills so that rhythmic tambourine shakes, thick press rolls, ratcheting wood scrapes and a steady backbeat are heard all at once. Holding the bottom are the rhythmically powerful and chromatic spiccato runs of bassist Lloyd Swanton, occasionally doubled by overdubbing. MORE
July 2, 2008
The Splinter Orchestra
SPLITREC 17
Mating the minimal in sound with the maximal in personnel, this CD by Sydney, Australia-based Splinter Orchestra is instructive in that it demonstrates how subdued 26 musicians can sound in performance. Blending triggered electronic impulses and improvisers’ uncompromisingly extended tropes, the assiduous five-part suite also encompasses a couple of blazing, tutti explosions. But the fortissimo ferocity of those outbursts, plus their short duration serves to underscore the reductionist ethos of the rest of the program. MORE
March 6, 2008
Townsville
ReR Necks 8
Kapital Band 1
Playing By Numbers
Mosz 017
With terms such as ambient and minimalist sloppily and frequently bandied about, their correct connotation becomes as blurred as the sound often is during purported performances of the musical genre they’re supposed to represent.
The advantage of CDs such as The Necks’ Townsville and Kapital Band 1’s Playing By Numbers, however is that they’re ingeniously designed by musicians who concentrate as much on the details of creation as the overall structure. The discs also demonstrate that homespun, unfussy and discreet sonic creations should be expansive, not static or flimsy. Furthermore, although each band may be slotted in the same sub-section of musical creation, each pursues a different itinerary to reach its defined objective. MORE
March 6, 2008
Playing By Numbers
Mosz 017
The Necks
Townsville
ReR Necks 8
With terms such as ambient and minimalist sloppily and frequently bandied about, their correct connotation becomes as blurred as the sound often is during purported performances of the musical genre they’re supposed to represent.
The advantage of CDs such as The Necks’ Townsville and Kapital Band 1’s Playing By Numbers, however is that they’re ingeniously designed by musicians who concentrate as much on the details of creation as the overall structure. The discs also demonstrate that homespun, unfussy and discreet sonic creations should be expansive, not static or flimsy. Furthermore, although each band may be slotted in the same sub-section of musical creation, each pursues a different itinerary to reach its defined objective. MORE
January 17, 2005
The Boys - music for the feature film
ReRNECKS4
HOUSE BAND
Cycle Maintenance
Louie Records 033
Coming from completely different places -- not to mention continents -- because of a similar instrumental make up, these CDs end up with more similarities than differences.
What is even odder, however, is that THE BOYS is a studio amplification of the music Australian trio The Necks improvised for the 1998 feature film of the same name, while CYCLE MAINTENACE resulted from spontaneous sessions from a quartet of Portland, Ore. musicians early in 2004. MORE
August 16, 2004
JON ROSE/CHRIS ABRAHAMS/CLAYTON THOMAS
Artery
The NOWnow
RODRIGUES/UEBELE/ RODRIGUES/OLIVEIRA
Contre-Plongeé [six cuts for string quartet]
Creative Sources
By Ken Waxman
August 16, 2004
Turbulence and silence, rapidity and languorousness, are the attributes that separate each of these string-driven sessions from one another. Yet the precise methodology and sophisticated experimentation of the seven musicians involved, makes it obvious that contrapuntal chamber music is a plastic enough form to be successfully adapted to pure improv. MORE
April 5, 2004
COOPER-MOORE/TOM ABBS/CHAD TAYLOR
Triptych Myth
Hopscotch 14
THE NECKS
Drive By
Fish of Milk RER NECKS3
Piano, bass and drums combos have been one of the defining configurations of improvised music for more than five decades. But as these two exceptional trio sessions prove, with the right ideas and techniques, there’s still plenty that can be done with this traditional form.
Microtonalists, Australians The Necks do cheat a little bit on DRIVE BY. Using all the resources of a modern studio, keyboard man Chris Abrahams is able to doubletrack himself on piano, electric piano and organ, while drummer Tony Buck adds different percussion and samples. But seemingly tireless bassist Lloyd Swanton still uses his acoustic model to shape the rhythmic foundation of the one, more than hour-long piece that makes up the CD. MORE
February 24, 2003
Athenaeum, Homebush, Quay & Raab
Fish of Milk FOM 0008
For the uninitiated, hearing performances and CDs by the Australian trio The Necks are somewhat akin to looking at those cartoon quizzes that ask you to find the differences between two nearly identical pictures. Everything sounds very similar. But more contemplative exposure to the band’s work -- like careful examination of those pictures -- reveals a host of singular details, making The Necks’s creations not only exciting, but unique as well.
So it is with this oddly titled, 4-CD collection of live tracks. About 3¼ hours of music, each instant composition takes up one complete disc. Three of the shows were recorded in the band’s native Australia, one in Austria, and were transferred to CD with minimal postproduction and editing work. All can be heard as mesmerizing examples of ritualistic minimalism. MORE
July 13, 2002
Hanging Gardens
RerNECKS1
THE NECKS
Aether
Fish of Milk FOM 007
Australia’s The Necks seem to occupy a musical space somewhere between the jam band groove of the U.S.’s Medeski, Martin & Wood (MM&W) and the ambient intellectualism of the U.K.’s AMM.
Deft at mood creation, the band’s CDs and live shows are all of a piece, consisting of only one composition that takes about an hour to reveal its many facets. Like AMM’s conception, the time period allows the band members to take a piece through all its possible permutations before it’s exhausted. Unlike the British group, though, they maintain a constant, often foot-tapping beat. While the endproduct isn’t as outrightly intellectual or discerning as AMM’s, it also isn’t submerged into an almost endless, unvarying groove like many of MM&W’s compositions, which often clock in at a radio-friendly few minutes. MORE