WHEN avant garde is not code for discordant, it's a pound to a penny the music will be bearable.
At Dean Clough on Thursday night my watchword was disproved. The Necks, a cult Australian band with a mostly male following, could not move beyond dull for me.
An experimental jazz trio from Sydney, the Necks are Chris Abrahams on piano, Tony Buck on percussion and Lloyd Swanton on double bass.
The band play improvisational pieces of up to an hour in length and their Halifax set showcased this uncompromising approach.
Yet, for me, the story of an Emperor's new clothes came to mind after 20 or 30 minutes of their calming, but soporific, wall of sound which pervaded a rather under-dressed art gallery, the walls, between exhibitions, almost as minimal as the musical fare.
It was not radical, bordering rather on the monotonous, and although finely modulated, full of repeated drum beats and repetitive bass figures, the piano, nominally the lead instrument, revealed scant development.
At the start, there was a hint of possibility – breathy bass bowing miming a didgeridoo and small keyboard patterns which suggested Reich or Glass. But the progressions, the forward motion, never came: the over-extended blend offered bare nourishment.
Fans from far and wide turned up in force. One told me that The Necks never play the same piece twice, so committed are they to the improvised creed. Three cheers, I'd say, because if I ever hear them again they may just have changed their tune.
Jayne Sheridan