No Neck Blues Band - Sticks And Stones

  by Andrew Carver

published: 12 / 2 / 2002

Label: Revenant
Format: CD

intro

"Organic" and totally unique debut album from "strange but amazing New York based DIY improv group."

The No Neck Blues Band is a strange but amazing New York based DIY improv group who play peculiar venues and release their own records in oddly packaged limited editions. Their latest CD is packaged in a regular plastic tray which has been backed with a piece of square plywood in which the NNBB’s motif has been burned, and a plexiglass lid held on with velcro tabs at the corners. Unusual, that.  A paper strip wraps around the edge with the group’s name, three revealingphrases: “A sense of movement, capable of perceiving the irresistible developments hidden in extreme slowness —” “— extreme agitation   concealed beneath a veil of immobility —” “— the entirely new insinuating itself into the heart of the monotonous repetition of the same thing;” and the album’s title 'Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones, But Names Will Never Hurt Me'. It’s appropriate because a) it’s a childhood nursery rhyme and b) it sounds like sticks and stones make up a fair amount of their instrument collection. Listening to the album you’ll hear tambourines, single note guitar, bursts of flute, hand-beaten drums, banjos, guitars, a variety of bowed and unbowed string instruments,  squawking and non-squawking horns, bottles (full, partly full and empty), wind chimes, finger snapping, mouth harps, marimbas, just about every form of vocalisation known to man — whistling, whispery lullabies, funereal keening, lowing and moaning, chanting, cawing, barking, droning, gasping, babbling, panicking, grunting, growling, choking, cawing, inhaling, exhaling, exhorting — and, at one point, what sounds like either a badly maintained typewriter or a small animal trying to escape from a hat box. None of this goes on all at once; it sounds more like each of the musicians strum, hit, pluck (or whatever) whichever instrument strikes their fancy, then move on. The music shifts from loud to soft, from ferociously rhythmic, as on the sixth track’s zenith, to almost completely disjointed. Each song has its particular charms. In 'The Natural Bridge',  the words “That’s where I lost my baby oh, on that rocky mountain top” are slurred, chopped and rearranged into a distillation of a dozen folk songs.  'Assignment Subud' begins with tinkling and chiming percussion, and wordless vocals. The track then begins to cohere over a deep bass drum, low key guitar melody and a droning cello,. Whispered, exhorting vocals are added,before the tune falls back under a blizzard of sax, then builds up again with chanted vocals, scraped strings and a heavy rhythm. Although some of the music is reminiscent of  Godz — the final tune is defined enough (at least as it begins) that it could have fit on '“Contact High' — or Japanese groups like Ghost and Acid Mothers Temple in their more acoustic moments, it’s more accurate to say the group sounds like animals in the woods, calling and responding, marking out their territory. There’s a coordination that keeps everything in relation; the music expands and contracts like something alive.  Wonderful production by Jerry Yester (who also produced the Association, Turtles, Tom Waits, Tim Buckley and, er, Pat Boone) adds to the organic feel of the album; short of being in the room when the tracks were being laid down, you couldn’t find better sound fidelity. The No Neck Blues Band may reside on the outskirts of what people think of as music, but it’s a place everyone should visit at least once.

Track Listing:-