Australian improvising jazz group the Necks will play Whelan’s of Dublin on 20 November. The concert is part of a European tour, which also includes dates at the London Jazz Festival on 18 and 19 November, and concerts with Harold Budd across Britain in the week following the concert at Whelan’s.

The label ‘improvising jazz group’ might seem tautologous, but it is pertinent here. Whilst the music the Necks make fits idiomatically into the recent jazz tradition of free, groove-based post-bop playing heard in the music of such groups as E.S.T. or the Bad Plus— albeit infused by ambient and minimalist styles — the Necks generally do not perform either standards or compositions of their own making. Instead, their sets primarily consist of long, trancing improvisations on repeating motifs, which expand and contract in wave-like motions of the fullest dynamic and granular detail.

Click here for our review of the Necks concert with Paul G. Smyth in Limerick, from November 2007.

The concert at Whelan’s comes in support of the vinyl and CD release of the Necks’ latest album, their sixteenth and their first to be released on vinyl, Mindset.

The doors for the concert are 8.00pm. and tickets are priced at €18.50, not including booking fee.

www.thenecks.com
www.whelanslive.com

Pictured: The Necks.