Chris Abrahams - Follower

 

Chris Abrahams whose groundbreaking work in The Necks we all know has an impressive body of work outside of this ensemble. He is coming back with a new album released by Brisbane-based Room40 label. It is his 6th album with this versatile label so far. And, as always it is something to behold.

Abrahams has developed throughout the years his own inner language of expressing through the piano as well as through electronic instruments, synths and anything that perplexes his mind enough to build compositions. He has an acute sense of harmony and tonality but also a unique sense of blending those with experiments and everything that fits his vision perfectly and makes it worthwhile to just stream his narrative into tracks that have both the sonic poetry and innovative solutions in terms of counterpoints and composition itself.

This one stands out as some of his most mature outputs. 

Biography

Chris was born in Oamaru, New Zealand but grew up in

Sydney, Australia.

He became very active in the Sydney jazz scene in the early

eighties playing with modern jazz groups including Mark

Simmonds’ Freeboppers and The Keys Music Orchestra.

With Lloyd Swanton he formed the 60’s modern jazzinfluenced

The Benders in 1982. During its day, the band

released three albums – E, False Laughter and Distance.

In 1984 Chris recorded and released his first solo piano album

– Piano, followed in 1986 by Walk.

In 1985 Chris became a founding member of the Sydney indie

rock band The Sparklers. As a result of this, Chris began

working regularly with the singer and songwriter Melanie

Oxley. Chris collaborated with Melanie, writing songs and

producing albums, throughout the nineties. There are five

releases with her: Resisting Calm (1990), Welcome to Violet

(1992), Coal (1994), Jerusalem Bay (1998) and Blood Oranges

(2003).

Chris released a third solo piano album, Glow, in 2001. This

was followed in 2003 by Streaming, and then Thrown (2004),

Play Scar (2010), Memory Night (2013), Fluid To The Influence

(2017) and Appearance (2020).

01 Costume

02 New Kind Of Border

03 Sleep Sees Her Opportunity

04 Glassy Tenseness Of Evening

Mastered by Lawrence English at Negative Space

Cover Image by Traianos Pakioufakis

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