Amongst other qualities, the music of Australia’s The Necks is hypnotic and always evolving. That is, mesmerizing in the moment and never static over the span of a single long improvised piece or across a nearly four-decade stretch of productivity. Their twentieth studio album Disquiet, available October 10 through Northern Spy, is an appropriately expansive affair, featuring four tracks on three compact discs with durations ranging from 26 to 74 minutes. Massively scaled yet engrossing, The Necks’ brilliance is singular as it journeys once again to unexpected heights.
Disquiet clocks in at 3 hours, nine minutes, 27 seconds, making it roughly one minute longer than Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson’s feature film released in 1999. Disquiet is roughly four minutes longer than Stanley Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon but eight minutes shorter than Kubrick’s Spartacus. These comparisons aren’t particularly significant except to denote the coexistence of the epic and the engaging.
But why choose film rather than music for the purposes of illuminating similarities? Indeed, there are numerous recordings that are of comparable length or even considerably longer than Disquiet. One reason is to acknowledge the reality of difference as it applies to The Necks, whose music has often been categorized as jazz but sounds like no other working group in the wide-ranging history of the form, even as it flows from the well-trodden ground of the piano trio model.
That’s Chris Abrahams on keys of various types, Lloyd Swanton on basses electric and acoustic, and Tony Buck on drums and percussion. They have welcomed guests on a handful of recordings but more often assume the roles of multi-instrumentalists, frequently by adding electronics into the weave.
Dungannon, UK | Vinyl boom is ‘lifeline’ says music shop owner: A music shop owner has said the surge in people buying physical-format music like vinyl has a been “lifeline.” Raymond Stewart, of Stewart’s Music Shop in Dungannon in County Tyrone, said they had “thrown out our LP stands” only to have to search for them again, when demand started to rocket. Twenty years ago, telling someone you had just bought a vinyl record might have prompted a raised eyebrow, and a decade later, the same might have been the case for a CD. But a revival of physical-format music has seen sales reach their highest levels in 30 years. In 2024 the number of independents hit a 10-year high in the UK, at the same time that the total number of shops selling music—such as record stores chains and supermarkets—fell. This has contributed to a renaissance for another part of the music business which was on the decline just a few years ago—
Rochester, NY | Record Archive: Two Rochester businesses added to NY’s Historic Registry. Lipman’s Kosher Market in Brighton and Record Archive in Rochester have been named to the New York State Historic Business Preservation Registry. …Record Archive began in 1975, when Richard Storms began selling records from a booth at flea markets. Soon after he began leasing space inside Village Green bookstore at 766 Monroe Ave before opening his own store at 1388 Mt. Hope Ave. in 1980. …Record Archive was inducted into the Rochester Music Hall of Fame in April. “We started Sunday, Sept. 16, 1975, with four tables of records and a sign,” Richard Storms said. “This store is kind of a dream. I’m a believer that a business’s name should be its mission statement and Record Archive is our mission statement and it was 
10cc were an English art pop band whose American success has been limited to two of their most traditional songs: 1975’s “I’m Not in Love,” which rose to No. 2 on the pop charts, and 1976’s “The Things We Do For Love,” which made its classy way to No. 5. Musically, 10cc’s closest American counterparts are Sparks, whose elegantly witty songs look at the world askew, and like 10cc have been rewarded by limited commercial success.
IE | Record stores see new Taylor Swift album as a ‘godsend.’ …The power of ‘Swiftonomics’—a term coined to reflect the massive fiscal boost the superstar’s concerts, marketing and sales give to local economies—is also giving a welcome boost to independent record store owners enjoying a revival of analogue and retro sales of vinyl and CDs, as well as merchandise. Brian Murray, co-owner of Elevation Music in Dublin’s George’s Street Arcade, said Swift has played a significant role in the revival of physical music sales. He told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘She’s played a part because she sells a lot of records. She brought out a lot of special editions of albums, which obviously helps sales.’ So far, her latest album has 
St. Louis, MO | Tom ‘Papa’ Ray returns for new season of ‘Vintage Vinyl Roadshow.’ Tom “Papa” Ray has been in the music business for decades. Last year, the Vintage Vinyl founder took his love for vinyl records and put it on the small screen in a docuseries, “Papa Ray’s Vintage Vinyl Roadshow,” which airs on Nine PBS and other PBS member stations across the country. Season 2 of the program premieres at 6:30 p.m. Saturday. Viewers can also stream it on pbs.org. The new season opens with a montage of record store patrons answering a simple question: “What was your first record?” Ray told St. Louis on the Air that the question takes people back to their earliest or 
The first good reason to listen to Boney M. is they’re masters of kitsch–one only need check out their video for “Rasputin” to be convinced. The guy playing Rasputin is a Borat double, and the lyrics are hilarious. The second good reason to listen to Boney M. is, believe it or not, they produced some good disco songs, many of which were as ubiquitous to European dance floors as coke spoons were to Studio 54. Imagine a dollar store Abba with–and this is all-important–a dada twist. Tristan Tzara would have loved them.
Akron, OH | Square Records: Highland Square packs nightlife, popular events into a single square mile. Central Akron neighborhood is also home to more than 7,600 residents. “…Square Records is a record store in Highland Square. We primarily focus on indie rock, jazz, international, hip-hop. It started with a focus on records and vinyl albums, and that has stayed the same for the past 23 years. “We also carry local artists when people wanna sell through us. We have hosted shows in the past. We don’t have a space for it anymore, we have grown out of it. We are busting at the seams.” Akron band The Black Keys and other indie bands performed at the store in the past. “We’re one of a very few retail locations in Highland Square. There’s not a ton of retail. So we kind of filled that gap, first of all. Second of all, we are community-based purely by the fact that we’re, you know, we do support local artists. We support local bands,” Juniper said, noting they’ll carry popular artists such as Taylor Swift, too, 
New York, NY | New book is a visual love letter to local record stores: When I was in college in the mid to late 1990s, when I would be home for school breaks at my parents’ house in the suburbs of Philadelphia, I worked here and there at a small, independent music shop known as Rock Palace. It wasn’t a big store, mainly dealing with new and used CDs in those days. If you’ve ever seen the movie “High Fidelity,” you understand the vibe of the place, though we weren’t nearly as funny, and had longer hair. In the back of the shop, there was a small record section that we would sometimes add some band’s limited release albums to, though they were rare at the time. And once or twice a month, someone would come in with a box or two of records they were trying to unload that they had found at their parents’ house when they were moving. But vinyl was not that big of a seller. And in the early 2000s, Rock Palace went under as streaming and digital downloads took over. But how times have changed. Vinyl is back, 
