The Necks: Aether Or.

The Necks play The Zoo on February 25

For almost two decades The Necks have enjoyed recognition as one of the great cult bands of Australia. The trio formation simply attracts followers through their blend of Improvised Trance Jazz, outstanding musicianship and unique performance chemistry. Put bluntly, The Necks allow the music the right to life.

The Necks are: Keyboardist Chris Abrahams, drummer Tony Buck and bassist Lloyd Swanton, music Masters who boast super reputations on the home front and the international scene.

Chris has popped up in the Midnight Oil line up, tossed material around with Melanie Oxley and the Hunting Party and is always in demand as a session musician in Sydney. Abrahams has worked along side the likes of Wendy Matthews, Stephen Cummings, The Church and The Whitlams and even received several Rolling Stone Critic Awards.

Tony Bucks, leader of the hardcore/impro band the Peril lives mainly in Europe. Throughout his career he has also connected with many creative music minds of the World. Some of the relationships he has formed involve: Tenko, Tom Cora, Jon Rose, Ground Zero, The Machine for Making Sense and Phil Minton.

Then there’s Lloyd Swanton. Lloyd once rated a mention in America’s Billboard Magazine as, “An outstanding and imaginative Australian bassist and composer” a description he has certainly earned. Following is a selection of performance highlights that support this claim: The Bernie Mc Gann Trio, Vince Jones, The Mighty Reapers, his MO award winning jazz group the Catholics, Film Soundtracks and appearances on several albums awarded a win by ARIA.

Each year at various intervals Chris, Lloyd and Tony meet head on as The Necks. Tour time comes around and individual projects are not just placed aside Lloyd explains: “It’s more or less a pattern one tour of Australia per year and two tours of Europe and if individual things come along we can always make ourselves available in terms of setting up our own string of dates, that is the sorta pattern we’re into.”

Lloyd recalls how well their recent European tour went. “It was incredibly successful in the UK,” he says. “We had only ever done two gigs in London in all the times we had toured Europe and that was the sum total of our UK appearances. I mean we sold out our London show.”

Also to The Necks credit is a collection of album projects. The albums released by Fish of Milk include: Sex, Next, Aquatic, Silent Night, Piano Bass Drums, The Boys, Hanging Gardens, Aether and recently their four disc initiative Athenaeum, Homebush, Quay & Raab.