The countdown continues. Read about numbers 40 through 31 here.
27) Necks, Vertigo (Northern Spy)
Veteran Australian piano trio the Necks are famous for the way their hypnotic, powerful concerts build slowly from tiny improvised kernels into epic journeys, but they’ve increasingly been exploring and shaping those impulses in the studio as well, rather than simply attempting to capture the feel of their live performances. The single harrowing track on Vertigo uses plenty of electronics and overdubbing, shaping its churning drone with scatterings of fragile melody, thickets of sludgy texture, and ripples of feedback. The Necks have yet to exhaust their old modus operandi, but now they have a second one they can use for recordings.
22) Steve Coleman & the Council of Balance, Synovial Joints (Pi)
The music of saxophonist Steve Coleman has long relied on tightly interlocking polyrhythms to drive his contemporary variations on bebop phrasing—and to pull this off, he needs nimble musicians who can really click together. That made me dubious about Synovial Joints, for which he assembled a 20-strong orchestra—the odds didn’t seem good that so many musicians could maintain such a high level of precision. The album and the four-part suite at its center are named for the kind of encapsulated, self-lubricated joint that’s common in the human body, an apt metaphor considering how the layers of Coleman’s compositions make snug yet flexible connections. The large group, named the Council of Balance, knocks it out of the park, providing a dazzling new perspective on his music.
