Chris Abrahams is best known as the pianist in the instrumental trio The Necks - a group that has firmly established itself both in Australia, Europe and the USA, and has collaborated with such artists as Brian Eno, Underworld, Swans, Leo Abrahams, Evan Parker and Ilan Volkov.
In 2019 he, along with the other members of the Necks, received the Richard Gill Award for Distinguished Services to Australian Music.
As a solo pianist, Chris has performed in Australia, The UK. Germany and the USA. He has just released his 11th solo album Appearance on the Room40 label. .
Having grown up in Sydney, Chris emerged from the inner city jazz scene of the early eighties, during which time he performed and recorded with such groups as Mark Simmonds' Freeboppers. In1986 he formed the Necks with Lloyd Swanton and Tony Buck.
Chris was also active in the healthy inner city rock scene of the eighties in Sydney and subsequently recorded and played with many groups including The Triffids, Crow, The Apartments and Love Me. His most enduring collaboration in this vein has been with the singer/songwriter Melanie Oxley with whom he has released five cds.
More recently, Chris has recorded and performed with many European based musicians including Burkhard Beins, Alessandro Bosetti and Axel Doner. He is a member of several Berlin-based groups including Sink, The Still, and The Dogmatics.
Chris's approach to piano playing is very much concerned with the concept of a hammer hitting a string. Although this might sound like a truism, it reflects an intent to approach the instrument on its own terms; an acknowledgement of the evolution of the technology that has delivered up what we know as the modern piano.
He uses the sustain pedal to create hallucino-orchestral sounding clouds of sympathetic resonation. He uses the una corda pedal to manifest subtractive filtering effects. He uses rapid hammering techniques to "overload" string resonance and create distortion-like outcomes, and with the use of extremely fast rhythmic phrasing, often played by all ten fingers, he conjures mysterious harmonics and melodies. He uses the complexities of the piano's mechanics and resonances to transcend the initial sounding of the vibrating string. In some ways it can be seen that Chris tries to get the piano to make sounds that piano makers have tried to eliminate over the centuries.
This is not to say that Chris' music lacks personal expression or aesthetic beauty. His performances can contain elements of both melodic and textural beauty juxtaposed with industrial sounding patterning contained within a mesmeric and slowly evolving sound world.
Source: Old 505 Theatre