2006, Part Eight

No-Neck Blues Band & Embryo - EmbryoNNCK (2006)

No-Neck Blues Band came to my attention only last year, and they're undeniably intriguing. They're a band that simply take the creative, fiery, spontaneous energy of simply playing with either each other or other musicians, and put it to record. There's very little structure to No-Neck Blues' Band's music, but it comes across so entirely genuine and dedicated to the process of music-making, the true exploration of sounds and the pursuance of musical ideas, that it's easy to think they're a little beyond you (also, they're more jazz-influenced than blues influenced, so the name is inappropriate, although they truly have incorporated almost all conceivable styles in the 15 years they have been making music). It possibly took, then, a collaboration with likeminded "space jazz" band Embryo to flesh out their ideas in a more grounded forum. EmbryoNNCK is just a pleasure to sit back and listen to. It is the sound of creation and experimentation, of music guided only by the feelings it incites in its players. It also resists "weirdness," staying well within the confines of avant gardeism without calling undue attention to any one of its individual parts. Jazzy, beautiful, it's just a great and varied expanse of music. Listen and hear if you, too, can dig.

Download "Five Grams Of the Widow"