Drive-By

by The Necks
ReR Megacorp, Thornton Heath, UK, 2003 (CD)
£11.50
http://www.rermegacorp.com.

Reviewed by Michael R. (Mike) Mosher
Saginaw Valley State University, University Center MI 48710 USA

mosher@svsu.edu

In the midst of the overheated 1970’s muscular glam rock and the whirl of the disco dance floor, the German synthesizer band Kraftwerk appeared and presented a cool, novel travel experience in "Autobahn", providing a driving beat in all senses of the word. Soon after, this reviewer remembers nocturnally speeding across flat, southern Ontario’s Highway 401 in a big gold Buick, the synth-powered Donna Summer/Giorgio Moroder collaboration "I Feel Love" cooing over the radio into the wheatfield night, the song pulsing in time to the click of the seams in the highway. The Necks continue that sort of automotive evocation in Drive-By, an hour-long single track CD, packaged in a clear white cover befitting a Fish of Milk production. The Necks (http://www.thenecks.com) are an Australian band that has recorded nine albums since 1987. They consist of Chris Abrams on piano, Tony Buck on drums, and Lloyd Swanton on bass.

Early on, Drive-By reminds one of old-school techno——think Tonto’s Expanding Headband——as a synthesizer flutters atop a heartbeat bass, emitting symmetrical two- and four-note runs. The music and beat remain both subtle and restrained, a slow build-up until it is positively loping along. Little dreamy piano tinkles enter, the entire effect still ambient like Brian Eno or Harold Budd. Then Chris Abrams adds cool piano chords reminiscent of 1960s British television jazz or Joe Jackson’s later revival of the style, and then B3 organ. Tony Buck adds snare drum and high hat cymbals, then tabla and the full, ambitious exercise of his trap set.

Drive-By sounds like a movie, perhaps soundtrack to gentle scene in a better remake of J.G. Ballard's Crash, the great novel on the erotics of automotive destruction. This may be because The Necks are experienced in music for films; their soundtrack to Rowan Woods' 1998 movie The Boys was nominated Best Musical Score in the AFI Awards and Australian Guild of Screen Composers Awards. At one point in Drive-By something that sounds like a four-in-hand carriage trundles by.

The trip The Necks take us on is deceptively simple, and time passes along with the miles. If I were dancing, I probably wouldn’t find it irritating that the work is a bit too long; one keeps expecting it to end, and it doesn’t. It finally ends in crickets chirping, sounding more organic than the weird looping mechanical chirp ending Eno’s "The Great Pretender" three decades ago. The Necks and the listener have arrived at terminus, comfortable albeit a bit dazed in transit.