The No-Neck Blues Band have made a career out of dodging expectations, with good, bad, and sometimes baffling results. So it makes odd sense that, while most improv groups release live recordings in long unedited tracks, No-Neck instead opted to trim their 70-minute set from the 2005 Victoriaville Festival into a nine-song, 45-minute album. More surprising is how they did the trimming. The group's open-ended music usually climbs and crests, but here we get short chunks cut off before they can grow, like clouds waiting for some elusive wind to push them forward. That may sound boring or frustrating on paper, but in reality it can be peculiarly hypnotic.
With most improv, the fascination lies in how unscripted sound forms compelling arcs. Here, the puzzler is how No-Neck can generate so much interesting noise without moving forward. There's no shortage of activity in the band's gurgling soundscape, so the stubborn ability to stand still is entrancing. The best example is "Lady Vengeance", which combines prickly guitar with creaky atmosphere and portentous piano, resulting in a paralyzed tension. "Dosed Cremant" follows with brief noodlings chopped into aural haiku, and the dreamy "Four Head Food" is even more narrow. Rather than opening up its sound palette to any possible event, it focuses on a thin strip of mesmerizing sounds. Like many of these cuts, it works best on headphones, as microscopic tones become sharper when heard at close range. This tactic of isolating small vignettes doesn't always work. The hammering piano of "Pylorus in Repose" is tedious, and the goofy growls grafted onto "Julius: Tainted by Ore" are more off-putting than amusing (assuming they were meant to be funny).
Ultimately, No-Neck are still at their best when they let themselves breathe. "The Cacao Grinder" is an instant classic: electronic sketches, intermittent percussion, and clipped guitar slowly coalesce into a collective tribal groove. Sly musical figures that were present from the start become more vivid once a rhythmic outline is traced around them. "Brain Soaked Hide" pulls the same trick in a more rocking context, pushing female hums, loping bass, and wandering guitars toward a stoner-rock apex reminiscent of Bardo Pond or Hawkwind. It would be wrong to expect a group as excitingly impulsive as No-Neck to stick to the proven forms those two tracks represent, and the rest of Nine For Victor is definitely an intriguing experiment. But knowing this band, it's probably the last of its kind anyway, and that may be for the best.
