Audiopile Review: Very few groups manage to stumble upon a simple but unique formula. Even fewer groups manage to provide endless permutations of such a formula across multiple decades. Goodness knows how The Necks managed, and continue to manage, it. Since forming in 1987, the Sidney-based trio of Chris Abrahams, Tony Buck, and Lloyd Swanton have been… doing what, exactly? The line-up of piano, bass, and drums might lead you to expect jazz. That’s not a million miles off, but the band’s epic, minimalist improvisations rarely refer to anything idiomatically jazzy. Free improv, then? Sure, but that suggests something far more angular and dissonant than this group’s fluid soundscapes. “Soundscapes”, you say? Well, that sounds like ambient jazz. Again, not a million miles off, but The Necks specifically emerged from that vast, arid outback between the emergence of post-‘In a Silent Way’, ECM-affiliated ambient jazz and the current revival. Still, you can learn a lot about what The Necks do from knowing what they don’t quite do. And if you like your jazz freewheeling and ambient, we can highly recommend ‘Bleed’, the group’s new album. Even by The Necks’ minimal standards, this is a sparsely atmospheric release. Buck’s drums are mainly used as texture and plenty of studio interventions and additional instrumentation are dropped in, to augment the core trio line-up. For a group of collaborators who have been exploring their unique formula for over 30 years, they sound remarkably fresh and inspired, as if there’s still plenty more to be discovered. ‘Bleed’ is extremely impressive but also simply, enchantingly beautiful.