Building on the astounding accomplishments of 2023’s ‘Travel’, and 2024’s ‘Bleed’, Northern Spy returns to their deep and longstanding dedication to The Necks with ‘Disquiet’, easily the group’s most ambitious release to date. Comprising over three immersive hours of mind-altering, time-bending sounds encountering the trio of Chris Abrahams, Lloyd Swanton, and Tony Buck pushing endlessly forward at the junctures of free improvised jazz and minimalism. Nearly four full decades into their run, through these incredible expanses of organizations of sound, The Necks further cement themselves as one of the most visionary and vital groups working today.

Since their founding during the second half of the 1980s, the Australian trio, The Necks - Chris Abrahams, Lloyd Swanton, and Tony Buck - have slowly emerged as a singular force within the global landscape of experimental music, weaving remarkable, free flowing improvisations that rest within the border regions between Minimalism and jazz. Marked by an astounding sense of artistry and musicianship, there is, quite simply, no other band like them. The last couple of years have witnessed the trio picking up their already prolific pace with two outings - 2023’s full-length stunner, ‘Travel’, and 2024’s equally striking ‘Bleed’ - with the New York based imprint Northern Spy. Now, just a year on from the latter, The Necks return to Northern Spy with what is arguably their most ambitious and sprawling full-length to date, the absolutely incredible ‘Disquiet’. Their twentieth studio recording, which marks the band’s 39th year - a culmination of their extraordinary journey that continuously presses into uncharted sonic territory - across three CDs, comprising three hours of brilliant musical intensity across four long-form tracks, The Necks offer an unprecedented immersion into their unique sonic world, building and unraveling hypnotic structures at the outer edges of their collective intuition.

Drawing upon the diverse musical backgrounds of each of its members, The Necks were founded in Sydney, Australia, in 1987 by Chris Abrahams (piano / Hammond organ), Tony Buck (drums / percussion / electric guitar) and Lloyd Swanton (bass). Even from their earliest emergence into the global consciousness with their debut full-length, 1989's "Sex", the group entirely stood out from the pack, demarcating a minimal zone at the more experimental reaches of jazz (if it can even be called that thing). Defined by a rare sense of acoustic purity, restraint, and a singular creative vision, guided into being by unparalleled musicianship and mutual respect amongst its three members, over the decades, and across roughly two dozen full-lengths, The Necks have ebbed and flowed, creating a music that feels remarkably open while precise, their pieces evolving slowly over their durations, focusing the ear toward microscopic details, in understated tapestries of sonority that engage an endless sense of surprise from the most elemental means.

In the simplest sense, the Necks are a band that feel as though they have nothing to prove - three artists in close conversation, easing forward as a single, collective force - while making music that is earth-shatteringly understated to profound effect: the minimal, maximised. Their latest, ‘Disquiet’ draws upon nearly 40 years of the group’s activities, distilling their remarkable creative journey across the nearly three hours of music that comprises the album’s four tracks. Furthering the group’s dedication to an interplay between themselves and their listeners, the album was conceived with no prescribed listening order, embracing their longstanding ability to stretch and challenge notions of time.

One of the key features of the Necks, most easily discerned when seeing the band live over numerous sets across a sequence of days, is their ability to shift notions of dynamics and scale, creating a music within which microscopic changes take on a sense of monumentalism. While unquestionably present in their previous releases, the sheer scope and duration of ‘Disquiet’ allows access to this dimension in recorded form like never before. Unfurling at delicate, glacial paces, rooted in complex textures, acoustic ambiences, and carefully honed rhythmic and tonal interplay, the four tracks of ‘Disquiet’ - 'Rapid Eye Movement', 'Ghost Net', 'Causeway', and 'Warm Running Sunlight' - encounter the trio in top form, delivering evolving motifs, and roiling phases of propulsive clatter, that are equally as Necks as can be imagined, while unquestionably pushing forward into unexpected territory, particularly through dynamic shifts that entirely shift the temperaments of a piece out of the blue, and a slightly expanded instrumental palette, incorporating guitar, organ, and a handful of other sound sources, alongside the usual drums, piano, and bass combo, which collectively presents strains of subdued surprise coupled with their unmatched focus and intentionality.

Wide open and tight as hell at the same time, ‘Disquiet’ is an unmatched journey into the intra and extra worlds of The Necks, sprawling to durations and corresponding insights that have been previously unavailable outside of encountering the group live. Miraculous in its scope, dynamics, and virtuosic delivery - offering everything we’ve come to expect from the group and more, deepening with each encounter. What can we say? The Necks have upped their own game. Their twentieth studio recording further proves that there’s no one like them, and they remain one of the most vital forces in the musical landscape nearly a full four decades into their run.