| Body | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | August 14, 2018 | |||
| Recorded | 2018 | |||
| Studio | Music Feeds Studio, St Peters, Australia | |||
| Genre | Improvised music | |||
| Length | 56:38 | |||
| Label | Fish of Milk FOM00018 Northern Spy NS 104 | |||
| Producer | The Necks | |||
| The Necks chronology | ||||
| ||||
Body is an album by Australian improvised music trio The Necks first released on the Fish of Milk label in 2018 in Australia and on the Northern Spy label in the US. [1] [2]
| Aggregate scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 84/100 [3] |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Pitchfork | 8.0/10 [4] |
| Tiny Mix Tapes |   [5] |
| Allmusic | [6] |
Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, awarded the album a score of 84, based on 9 reviews which is considered as "Universal acclaim". [3]
Pitchfork's Grayson Haver Currin called the album "engrossing and overwhelming" and noted "for the first time, the trio indulges its rock’n’roll instincts, resulting in one of the most powerful albums in the band’s catalog ... Body feels newly reflective of our space and time, a stark and jarring statement about the precipice of modern life. This is as high as the Necks have ever taken us and, as such, as low as they’ve ever left us". [4]
In JazzTimes Mike Shanley noted "it comes as a bit of a surprise that Body, the Australian trio’s 20th album, begins with the band in the midst of a groove ... Unlike any jazz group, they sound closer to indie-rock bands such as Yo La Tengo or Stereolab, which have been known to sustain energy for extended periods while playing drones like this ... it’s hard to walk away from the music until it’s done". [7]
Tiny Mix Tapes' Jazz Scott called it "enthralling" [5] Rolling Stone critic Christopher R. Weingarten wrote that the album "swerves from their 30-year career of gorgeous ambient washes and fragile improv interplay, instead opting for muscle and hypnosis. This nearly 57-minute piece is held together by drummer Tony Buck’s right arm, which taps out ride-cymbal eighth notes while the band ebbs and flows, builds and collapses, churns and soars. This album is really Buck’s show, his overdubbed percussion accents clanking like a Rube Goldberg machine ... Body doesn’t have the telekinetic bond of the Necks’ famed live show, or the gorgeous ambience of recent albums like Vertigo and Untold, but it brings these veterans into a different space". [8]
Thom Jurek reviewed the album for Allmusic explaining "This is a single hourlong work with four distinct sections, performed in unhurried articulation and elucidation as a unit -- no one solos, all the time ,,, The Necks move incrementally forward in their quest for the musical unknown on Body; it displays all their creative strengths in a single typically engrossing work". [6]
Uncut selected it as number 50 on their Best New Albums of 2018 list. [9]
Composed by Chris Abrahams, Tony Buck and Lloyd Swanton
The Necks are an Australian avant-garde jazz trio formed in 1987 by founding mainstays Chris Abrahams on piano and Hammond organ, Tony Buck on drums, percussion and electric guitar, and Lloyd Swanton on bass guitar and double bass. They play improvisational pieces of up to an hour in length that explore the development and demise of repeating musical figures. Their double LP studio album Unfold was named by Rolling Stone as "one of the top 20 avant albums of 2017."
Piano Bass Drums is the fifth album and first live album by Australian improvised music trio The Necks released on the Fish of Milk label in 1998. The album features a single track titled "Unheard", performed by Chris Abrahams, Lloyd Swanton and Tony Buck recorded in concert at The Basement in Sydney, Australia.
Drive By is the seventh album by Australian improvised music trio The Necks first released on the Fish of Milk label in 2003 and later on the ReR label internationally. The album features a single hour-long track, titled "Drive By", performed by Chris Abrahams, Lloyd Swanton and Tony Buck.
Townsville is the fourteenth album and fourth live album by Australian improvised music trio The Necks first released on the Fish of Milk label in 2007 and on the ReR label internationally. The album a single track, titled "Townsville", performed by Chris Abrahams, Lloyd Swanton and Tony Buck recorded live at the Riverway Arts Centre in Thuringowa, Northern Queensland.
Silverwater is the tenth album by Australian improvised music trio The Necks first released on the Fish of Milk label in 2009 in Australia and on the ReR label internationally. The album features a single track, titled "Silverwater", performed by Chris Abrahams, Lloyd Swanton and Tony Buck.
Angels of Darkness, Demons of Light I is the sixth full-length studio album by the band Earth, released on Southern Lord Records. Cello is introduced as a new instrument, along with the usual ones being used since the album Hex. Dylan Carlson describes the album as more melodic and riff oriented. The second part of the album was released in 2012. The album illustrations were created by Stacey Rozich.
Open is the twelfth album by Australian improvised music trio The Necks, first released on the Fish of Milk label in 2013 in Australia and on the ReR label internationally.
I Am the Last of All the Field That Fell: A Channel is an album by British experimental music group, Current 93. It was released on 4 March 2014 through The Spheres record label. The album, which was premiered live on 12 February 2014 at Union Chapel in Islington, features contributions from various artists, including James Blackshaw, Andrew Liles, Ossian Brown, Antony Hegarty, Nick Cave, John Zorn and These New Puritans member Jack Barnett.
Primitive and Deadly is the eighth studio album by American musical group Earth. It was released on September 2, 2014, through Southern Lord Records. The album, which features Mark Lanegan and Rabia Shaheen Qazi of Rose Windows as guest vocalists, is the first Earth album since Pentastar: In the Style of Demons (1996) to feature vocals. Other contributors include Brett Netson of Built to Spill and Jodie Cox of Narrows.
Who Is the Sender? is the fifth studio album by English singer, pianist and songwriter Bill Fay, released by Dead Oceans in April 2015 by Dead Oceans. The second album track, "War Machine", was released in February 2015. The closing track, "I Hear You Calling ", was originally recorded for Fay's 1971 album Time of the Last Persecution.
Primrose Green is the second studio album by American musician Ryley Walker. It was released in March 2015 under Dead Oceans Records.
Luminiferous is the seventh studio album by American heavy metal band High on Fire, released on June 23, 2015, through Entertainment One Music. The album was produced by Kurt Ballou who handled production on the band's previous release, De Vermis Mysteriis (2012). The gap between these albums is the longest for High on Fire.
Grief's Infernal Flower is the third album by American doom metal band Windhand. The album was released on September 18, 2015 via Relapse Records. It was named the 17th best album of 2015 by Consequence of Sound.
Aria of Vernal Tombs is the second studio album by American medieval metal band Obsequiae. It was released on May 26, 2015 through 20 Buck Spin record label. The album features a mixture of medieval music and melodic black metal sounds, with influences from doom metal, death metal, neofolk and dark metal.
Love In Shadow is the third studio album by American post-metal band Sumac. It was released on September 21, 2018 through Thrill Jockey. Like the band's experimental collaboration with Keiji Haino earlier in 2018, much of the album was recorded improvisationally. Love in Shadow will be followed by a tour of the United States in early 2019.
Love & Evol is the twenty-fifth studio album by Japanese experimental band Boris, released 4 October 2019 on Third Man Records. The band describes the release as two distinct but interconnected works, bearing the titles LφVE and EVφL respectively, "encapsulating conflicting connotations that interweave and become intricately entangled with one another, gradually eroding before becoming utterly singular." The release was intended to illustrate the different extremes of the sounds Boris has explored previously in their discography, and as a counterpoint to their darker and more aggressive previous album Dear.
Unfold is an album by Australian improvised music trio The Necks first released on the Ideologic Organ label in 2017 as a double LP and download.
Vertigo is an album by Australian improvised music trio The Necks first released on the Fish of Milk label in 2015 in Australia, on ReR Megacorp in Europe, and on the Northern Spy label in the US.
Three is the twenty-first studio album by Australian improvised music trio The Necks released in 2020.
Occasional Rain is a 1972 studio album from American musician Terry Callier. Released by Cadet Records, it is Callier's second album and the first in the trilogy that he recorded in short succession for Cadet with producer Charles Stepney. It has received positive critical reception.