Artist: chris abrahams

Necks pianist Chris Abrahams' Room 40 release Play Scar will most def be on our 2010 toplist, but I didn't want it to go without a post even though it's been months since I've been listening to it. I don't know if it feels the same for everyone, or just me because I'm a lousy writer, but I find writing short blurbs to lesser albums so much easier than writing for more important or even groundbreaking ones such as this one. Thank God there are more responsible who love to tackle albums like this, be [...]

• Chris Abrahams - The Same Time

In its (first) ten years, the Australian Room40 label has built up an impressively diverse catalogue of experimental music; it would be asking too much for this year's Open Frame event, held for the second year at its spiritual home-from-home Cafe Oto, to do justice to that breadth. There was no place for Japanese avant-pop this year, or for abstract sound recordings, for example. Instead, the first night focused on the more improvisational end of their output, featuring percussionist Andrea Belfi, a quintet made up of the I/O3 trio with David Toop and Scanner, and Necks pianist Chris [...]

Chris Abrahams - Jelly Crown Chris Abrahams is the pianist from The Necks. If you know The Necks, then you know how exciting a solo record from any of them is. And if you don't know The Necks then 1: get on that shit and 2: get into this shit. Play Scar is where it's at. Abrahams' new solo outing is almost an hour's worth of gorgeous work that soars over the [...]

• Chris Abrahams - Jellycrown

It all starts so slowly. There they are, those short, warm organ chords that wake you from your slumber. Like the feeling of rubbing your eyes and witnessing something once blurred now in full focus. Then the interesting stuff happens. The odd tap, the sideways click, the echo of noise. The original idea has been subjected to a filter. No longer is this a simple piece of music, but a full on exploration of sound. And this is just the opening track, 'Copy of Brazil', from Chris Abrahams solo album Play Scar . The same Chris Abrahams [...]

Chris Abrahams Play Scar (2010, Room40) RIYL = Lawrence English, Keith Fullerton Whitman, The Necks In addition to aural maturity, there is a rich religiosity brewing throughout Play Scar . Not, in fact, that new wave religiousness so often caught up in the new experimentations (the immature ones), but a thick, meaningful presences, almost Christian – not to categorize Abrahams – in the way it sets itself pleasantly in the pews, reassuring you while enabling the wholesale destruction of everything outside your periphery. I, personally, subscribe to a form of Christianity myself, perhaps [...]

ROOM40 , the label and multi-arts organisation based in Brisbane, Australia, are celebrating their 10th anniversary with a series of events across the globe. They come to London's Cafe Oto for two nights of wonderful musical entertainment under the Openframe banner. Thursday 4th November Chris Abrahams - of The Necks, read our interview with him here . IO3 + David Troop + Scanner Andrea Belfi Tickets £10 ADVANCE / £12 ON THE DOOR, get 'em here . [...]

Chris Abrahams is probably one of the finest modern pianists I've ever had the good fortune of seeing perform live. As part of the trio that is The Necks, his, sometimes, solitary exploration of what you can do with a concert grand piano is a sight to behold. With the release of his solo album, Play Scar , this month, I had the chance to chat with Chris the night after playing the launch show in his native Australia. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, and very few teething problems, we chatted casually about The [...]

The last album by The Necks, the excellent Silverwater, wasn't at all what the casual observer would have expected from The Necks. In terms of its structure, and more so in terms of the choice of instrumentation, it was an unusual record, and not what one would have expected from the famously slow-building piano/bass/drums trio [...]