'At 6 AM We Become the Police'
What The Critics Say
Clomeim represents a bold new approach in the ongoing and hermetic saga of Harlem's rock improvisation unit No-Neck Blues Band (NNCK). Long before all that "new weird America" jive that shed light on then-underground bands like Sunburned Hand of the Man, Wooden Wand & the Vanishing Voice, Devendra Banhart, the now defunct Scorces, Hush Arbors, and the entire sprawling ilk, there was NNCK. The septet's origins trace back three years before 1996's unfettered Letters from the Earth and the brilliant, sprawling improvisation that is Live from Ken's Lake from 1998 (reissued in 2007). Clomeim, issued on Locust, also marks the band's first studio offering since the outrageous ambition they displayed on Qvaris issued on the 5 de Rue Christine imprint. Usually, NNCK find their way through an elemental process of building and creating layers of improvising that more often than not develop into something elemental yet adventurous and sprawling. This time out, the band holed up in their new upstate studio for 72 hours and jammed. When they were finished, they used the old-fashioned method of manually editing down tapes of performances for maximum effect. The sonics are still brave and unhinged, but this time out they are deeply focused on the "one"; they go directly at that moment to where it all begins to "happen," instead of hunting around for it. This is improvisation, but through these relatively short "songs," each piece's sonic identity emerges immediately. Nowhere is this more evident than on "Walking Wind," where a steady tom-tom rhythm rumbles and is adorned with hand drums, a recorder, electric bass, and sonic ambience in the form of electric guitars, a vocal that encroaches from the margin but never articulates itself fully. The rhythms however, create a kind of Krautrock Motorik palette that is hypnotically repetitive and seductively inviting. "Make Love" begins with Michiko's vocal (which plays a very large role on this set) which states, whispers, moans, and groans something over and over again in a foreign tongue, perhaps the title, perhaps nothing. Nervous electric guitar strafes, empty space, controlled feedback, and the sound of a slide and wah-wah pedal offer her ballast, albeit a gauzy and mysterious one, to continue. As drums and more instruments enter, the effect becomes more pronounced. Rhythm pushes underneath, detuned electric guitar solos are wrapped in ether, other instruments find a two-chord vamp to become the bedrock as restrained radio waves and other noise hovers tensely about. "La Promese Miruco" is the album's longest track, and sets about a steady rhythmic pulse even if its tonal center is dangerously slipping onto the edge of the cliff. But the repetition keeps it hovering close before the whole thing just lifts off -- again with Michiko's wordless vocals as both agitator and earthly anchor. There is something very reminiscent of the cut and a paste machination of Germany's Faust here; but Clomeim is less about imitation than method. NNCK are more disciplined than their German Krautrock forebears, even as they explore the netherworlds of the musical unknown. This would be an excellent introduction to the band for the beginner, though it in no way disappoints longtime fans. In fact, this set, despite its direct attack, is perhaps more "murk und drang" than anything they've done before. Amen. Let it come down. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
'NNCK Meets the Clear People with Mystery Gypped: Live at Ken's Electric Lake'
What The Critics Say
The No-Neck Blues Band performed at the 2005 FIMAV festival and, like Wolf Eyes (see Black Vomit) that year and My Cat Is an Alien (see Il Suono Venuto Dallo Spazio) a year later, they came out of the experience with their best-sounding live recording to this date. The festival's commanding experience in live sound capture is clearly a bonus asset for experimental noise/psych bands such as these. Of course, good sound is not everything. The group gave a very convincing performance under optimal conditions, bewitching the audience with its ritualistic music and puzzling stage antics. The latter dimension cannot be documented on compact disc, but, to make sure that this special recording would translate into a special listening experience, N-NCK edited the performance, keeping only three-quarters-of-an-hour and shaping that chunk into nine discreet spontaneous pieces. As a result, Nine for Victor stands as the group's most focused effort yet, not mentioning its easiest to listen to. Every musician's contribution (they were a seven-piece that night) can be clearly followed from beginning to end. Highlights include space rockers "The Cacao Grinder" and "Brain Soaked Hide," and the slow-burning "Lady Vengeance," but the album is very strong as a whole. The only minor flaw is the two-minute postlude "Tonsillar," slightly irritating after the blissed-out moments of "Brain Soaked Hide." Nevertheless, Nine for Victor may very well grow to rival Sticks & Stones as the definitive N-NCK statement. In any case, it is mandatory listening for fans of the band and an excellent place to start for newcomers. ~ François Couture, All Music Guide
'No Neck Blues Band and Embryo'
What The Critics Say
It goes and it goes. You may have an idea of what you think a full collaboration between New York's underground improv pioneers the No-Neck Blues Band (NNCK) and Germany's longstanding Krautrock experimentalists Embryo (alive in one form or another for over 30 years) might sound like. In some ways, you're right. But nothing quite prepares the listener for the understated, snaky, playful, yet ambiguous interaction that goes on here. Embryo have consistently defied categorization with their incorporation of various ethnic and aboriginal elements in their music. While it's true that Christian Burchard has been the only constant member, he has brought in players from Australia, various regions of Africa, Laplanders, and all manner of indigenous musicians to add to his mix of composition and improvisation. NNCK have been from the land of strange from the word go. Their numerous releases have defied easy pigeonholing and their insistence on remaining anonymous (until this release where every musician's name is listed on the back cover, but there's still no information about who plays what or where). This collaboration walked the wire from the outset and could have gone either way. It stays on the spare side of excess, though there is always a lot going on. Check the opener, "Wieder das Erste Mal," where a tom-tom, hand percussion, marimbas, shakers, a cimbalom, and a moaning voice usher in nine and a half minutes of trance where flutes and voices slip into the mix gradually, almost imperceptibly, until there is a wall of sound where the listener falls in the middle of the swirl. Its tribal nature never breaks down, but there is so much more in this mysterious meld that one can forget the rhythms, because they enter the unconscious. "Five Grams of the Widow," a brief piece recorded live, is almost jazz with arranged horns, vibes, toy pianos, etc., following a head for a short period. One has to wonder if the piece was excerpted for this release. It would have been nice if this one had stretched out more. "Die Farbe Aus Dem All," also moves into out rock territory and becomes an entity that engages jazz and Krautrock more than anything else here. The wailing horns are a real turn on, as is the intensity of the work. Both of the last two tunes here take a while to find their groove: "Zweiter Sommer" is laid-back and exotic, full of flutes and hammered dulcimers and subtly chanted voices; "Das Erste Mal," a revisit of the first track, is over 13 minutes and finds its groove about halfway through. Again, percussion and voices (with some throat singing) lead the charge, but it floats and begins to move and change shape, shifting constantly for about the last seven minutes until it ends up so far from where it began that one is likely to wonder what has just transpired. This is magic music; it melts, shifts, transforms itself as it displaces time. It goes and it goes. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The ever-swathed-in-mystery No-Neck Blues Band are back with another CD to enter into their catalog (and a double LP for you vinyl freaks). Based in Harlem, the anonymous collective has been together for a decade and put out more recordings than one can find or list. Qvaris is a continuation of their spooky blend of guitars, drums, strings, keyboards, and who knows what else (typical of their releases, no credits are given) that results in improvisational swirling psychedelic darkness. This one seems to be themed, and a statement of sorts. The band continues from its fine Intonomancy offering, which blended everything from Indian ragas, Native American ritual music, free improvisation, folk, and rock to postmodern experimentalism, and moves into a suite of sorts. The tunes are shorter, intentionally more focused, and somewhat direct. This is individualistic music that reflects, refracts, curdles, screams, and whispers from the various traditions, legacies, and lineages not just in music, but in the artistic freedom of the 19th and 20th centuries as it is brought to bear in the 21st. "The Doon," at a little over five minutes, is a droning, open-ended chant-like piece where electric guitars, percussion, shakers, and atmospherics snake around one another, meandering, it seems, around one theme. But it changes subtly, shifting in tone, texture, and tension. By contrast, the skeletal funk in "Live Your Myth in Grease" is almost accessible. But its primitive, skittering drums, repetitive, edgy six-string, plodding, fuzzed-out bass, and unnameable percussion instruments gradually build a super-steamy voodoo groove. Other pieces, such as "The Qvaris Theme," which recurs in principle if not in actual fact -- with other pieces between, making it another suite of sorts -- use strings, sawing and searing along with evil-sounding percussion, organs, and guitars to create a stark, tribal dread. There is sheer beauty here too, in the album's longest track, "Lugnagall," which builds from percussive repetition to include guitars and a pump organ, and becomes a swirling frenzy of ecstasy-writhing female vocals and droned-out freak bliss. The groove and mantra-like trance pieces do not juxtapose so much as blend into the cosmic, free-form scatterations, uniting it all into a sublime, wondrous opening of the sonic skylight into the void. But it's creepy, too. Some of the songs on this album would have made a brilliant soundtrack for a filmed version of H.P. Lovecraft's The Colour out of Space. Far from the loose spectral jamming of some of their earlier releases, this is the most cohesive, enchanted music No-Neck have ever made on tape. The live show is another beast altogether, but Qvaris comes close to revealing that in all its spirit-haunted glory. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
If you already know NNCK, you already have a pretty good idea of what to expect from Parallel Easters. And if you don't, you probably should start with a single studio CD like Intonomancy or Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones... instead of this double live set. Parallel Easters is typical NNCK: hypnotic, mantric, free, gripping, lulling, and at times a bit too meandering. Its best feature resides in the fact that it presents two different eras in the band's history. Both concerts were recorded on the Sunday after the first full moon in spring, one in 1999, the other four years later. Disc one consists of four tracks. The first three are rather short and very focused for NNCK tunes, "Weaving & Then Waving Straps" providing an excellent example of the kind of cautious psychedelic mayhem the band could achieve. The fourth piece, "Beyond the Edge the Carpet Cannot End At," is a 43-minute marathon. Here the band gets a little lost, but manages to keep the train on its tracks, mostly thanks to ever-changing rhythmic motives and a progressive conception of the piece that consistently seem to lead listeners from A to B to C, etc., despite the free-form aspect of the music. This does not happen in the 30-minute "Amortortak," the extended number of the 2003 concert. Here, the music loses most of its appeal past the ten-minute mark, as each musician chooses a different path. A foray into non-rhythmical improv leads to sluggish jamming and the regrouping in the last five minutes is not enough to recoup. It's a shame, because the other six pieces on disc two are simply wonderful, especially "An Exercise in Perception," "Mechel," and "Illirikum," the latter being one of the most focused attempts at tribal rock this band has yet recorded. In short, Parallel Easters is not the best place to start, but it's a good one to have. ~ François Couture, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
The rise in critical consideration of the No-Neck Blues Band since the release of their Revenant album Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, But Words Will Never Hurt Me had as much to do with their live shows and John Fahey's endorsement than with the music committed to record. In other words, that album alone (and even the other ones the group had self-released) could not justify the group's quickly rising cult status. But that's a thing of the past: Intonomancy lives up to all expectations. In each of the nine tracks, the musicians (as usual, the line-up is not disclosed) grab elements from folk, psychedelic rock, free jazz and minimalist music to create captivating instant pieces. The music is part improvisation, part ritual in rediscovering the virtues of simplicity in music. Unlike most rock-derived music of this kind (Godspeed You Black Emperor, Jackie-O Motherfucker), the listener can actually picture the musicians smiling and enjoying themselves while recording this optimistic music -- optimistic, but never naive. The drums lay down a groovy road, borrowing from Indian and Native American traditions to find the right trance-inducing pattern. The guitars avoid gratuitous noise to focus on repeated motifs and light psychedelic soloing. If these instruments are the skeleton and blood of the band, the violin is its soul and the saxophone its voice. They both express a wide range of emotions, the second more outgoingly than the first. "Play Your Play," the title track and the closer "The Shepherd Takes a Shine to the Abyss" stand out as premium examples of extended free-rock jams that go somewhere and take you along with them. Highly recommended as a substitute for mind-altering substances, Intonomancy is safer for your health and its effects last longer. ~ François Couture, All Music Guide
'Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones but Names Will Never Hurt Me'
What The Critics Say
No-Neck Blues Band were Revenant-founder, the late John Fahey's, favorite band, and it's too bad he didn't live to see the release of this next edition in No-Neck Blues Band's catalog. For the uninitiated, the band hails from Manhattan, upper and lower, and is comprised of mostly hirsute men and women who have nothing whatsoever to do with any blues you might be thinking of. They are mysterious (no one knows exactly how many recordings they've issued, though this is their third CD), they don't draw attention to themselves, and they are awesome. Their music can be loosely described, and was in their press release, as "often stumbling into a groove as irresistible as the swamp-choogle of vintage Creedence. Blues for fans of Beefheart, early Royal Trux, Dock Boggs, and Heliocentric Worlds-era Sun Ra." But just as often, it drifts into ghostly trancelike moments where rhythms and riffs turn around on each other in a spare, spacious hoodoo mix that is as sparse as dust and sounds like the players have been indulging in its use. Improv and groove slither and snake around one another, whispering their bliss with guitars, various drums, flutes, whistles, horns, and wanton bass. Produced by Jerry Yester at his Ozarks studio (Yester has worked with Tom Waits and Tim Buckley and was a member of the Lovin' Spoonful), the sound separations and quality real time-space maneuvers represent accurately what the band is like live. There are four tracks listed on the sleeve of this handsome package, each being handmade of wood and plastic by the band. But just as the four tracks are listed, there are seven on the CD itself. And number one is not a title so much as a series of lyrics. Weird? You bet. But it's all the more compelling for being so. I can picture reading Thomas Ligotti's creepy short stories to this music. Or doing shamanic tantric sex rituals as well. The boundaries are in your mind, not NNCK's; they wouldn't dream of imposing anything at all on your fragile psyche. Consider this a small snapshot, 75-minutes-worth, of the band doing what they do best: engaging and mystifying. ~ Thom Jurek, All Music Guide
