From the darkness, a tiny clatter of bells came bubbling – it reminded me of the sounds I’d heard whilst spending time at a Buddhist temple, opening my mind to foreign spiritual concepts. It’s funny that I should bring up religion so early, but what followed that tiny clatter was a huge wall of emotion dipped deep in darkness – a truly spiritual experience. A dark and rainy evening, filled with haze and a sense of mystery.

It was the perfect setting to see The Necks – an Australian 3 piece that plays an indescribable brand of experimental jazz.

Tony Buck, Lloyd Swanton and Chris Abrahams are more than band mates or good friends, they are three people that are simply connected – connected on a level so out of this world it’s hard to define their mere chemistry, let alone their sound.

Every single live set that The Necks play is improvised, completely unique – a body of feeling that lives for only a brief period, a fleeting gift, cherished by the audience. It seems like an absolute travesty to know what I experienced can never be replicated exactly ever again.

Tony Buck belted the drums with a mad intensity – scratching, pulling and moulding the dynamics of the piece; the heart and soul of the complicatedly beautiful body. At one point I sat in disbelief, eyes fixated on him, it was almost as if he was willing something out from deep inside.

Lloyd Swanton was equally as mesmerizing, adding a flow of blood to the pulsating heart Buck was providing. Swanton made me jump with terror, smile with glee and wallow in sadness in one piece of music. At times it even seemed like he was impersonating a rusty swing, blowing in the breeze.

If Buck and Swanton were amazing, Chris Abrahams was out of this world. Pulling fantastic solos out of thin air, his fingers moved so quickly and efficiently it’s almost hard to comprehend. Buck was the heart, Swanton was the blood and Abrahams was the rest of the tangible fibres – encasing the heart and blood and moving the being.

The way that The Necks build a piece – bit by bit and then deconstruct it in a live setting is something I urge everyone to experience live if they get a chance.

It’s unexplainable, it’s unclassifiable and it’s unattainable unless you’re them. Tony, Lloyd and Chris; there are no words.

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Bohren describe their music as Doom Jazz. Our friends call them Pervert Jazz. I like to think of them as Noir Jazz. Regardless of the title, these German nightwalkers are the business. If Satan was having a blow out, these guys would be doing the Coltrane covers.

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Jazz lovers should definitely check into the New World Jazz Composers Octet. They just released their third CD, Breaking News. It’s fun, funky, a little dreamily retro at times, but to me, it is instantly accessible and great for putting on in the studio during portrait sessions. It gets the subjects bopping along and in a great mood for the projects. One of my favorite tracks, Song Sung Long, features Catherine Smith, the band leader’s young daughter, doing spoken word in contrast to her father’s sax line.

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I heard the Hungarian jazz and folk saxophonist — Mihaly Dresch — in Budapest one Christmas and I fell in love completely. I put the CD on and straight away his tone, control and dexterity was enough to make me get up out of my seat and turn the volume way up. I wanted to just be immersed in this music. But aside from his playing, his compositions are breathtaking.

The album, Quiet As It Is, from 2001, is my favourite. Along with his band, they capture something timeless, and for me, otherworldy – the melodies are based on Hungarian folk tunes, but the playing swings and is influenced by jazzers, like Archie Shepp (with whom Dresch collaborated) and John Coltrane. This stuff is really something else.

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I have to say I have always been a sucker for a band with an accordion, so when I meet the Minneapolis based Dark Dark Dark in Venice this summer and they not only had an accordion but an upright bass and a cello, I fell in love with their sound. This music is magnanimous, touching and intuitively narrative. It is some sort of mix between Eastern European folk music, jazz and a soulful piano singer, but it doesn’t get lost to any one category that could be used to describe it.
[audio:http://www.minneapolisfuckingrocks.com/mp3/ddd_bbb.mp3]

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With talent beyond their years and humility to grasp their weight of their predecessors, Madrid’s Talk! have earned their salt as being the only active Hammond trio of young musicians in the city. While replacing the bass with an organ is nothing new, what sets Talk! apart is not innovation, but the unharnessed ferocity with which they pay ode to the beastly Hammond organ.

Talk! surges with the rhythm, precision, and pathos that gave life to 60’s jazz, stoking the coals that ignited organ giants like Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGrift, Jack McDuff, and Richard “Groove” Holmes. Their sound is dark and smoky, punctuated by fevered solos that send the crowd reeling. Talk! is Jon Sande on organ, Lucas Vázquez on guitar, and Beny Grooves on drums. In late April the boys will release their lauded first single-a 45 recorded completely on analogue by Spanish producer Carlo Coupé on the label Lontano Records.

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People have drawn comparisons between Virus and Talking Heads. The Norwegian trio surely incorporates a lot of jazz, experimental, and metal (the band is a supergroup of sorts with ties to bands like Satyricon, Aura Noir, and Inferno) elements, but their distinct gothic rock sound has very little connection to David Byrne and company. That’s not to say that it doesn’t rule.

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Primarily known as a jazz musician, John Lurie also is a prolific painter. His drippy style has something mysterious and even a bit creepy about it.

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The coolest band in Indonesia? I think so. White Shoes & The Couples Company describe themselves as a small band that is ‘influenced by Indonesian movie soundtracks from the 70s and inspired by the acoustic spirit of 1930′s classic jazz musicians’. But I like to think of them as carrying the torch for artists like Benny Goodman, Tahiti 80, and The Cardigans, all at the same time.

Listen to their track, Super Reuni.
[audio:http://www.thepinglepad.com/music/2008/January/SuperReuni.mp3]

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