The No-Neck Blues Band, also known as NNCK, is a seven-member free-form improvisational musical collective from New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. Formed in 1992, the original band was of eight members (until John Fell Ryan left to join noise group, Excepter

Excepter

Excepter is an experimental music group from Brooklyn, founded in 2002 by No-Neck Blues Band member John Fell Ryan. They have released their work on labels such as Load Records and Animal Collective's Paw Tracks, and are known for their improvisational approach to playing both live and in the...

), and has practiced weekly in a space in Harlem

Harlem

Harlem is a neighborhood in the New York City borough of Manhattan, which since the 1920s has been a major African-American residential, cultural and business center. Originally a Dutch village, formally organized in 1658, it is named after the city of Haarlem in the Netherlands...

 since. Membership includes Dave Nuss, Keith Connolly, Dave Shuford, Jason Meagher, Pat Murano, Matt Heyner, and Mico.

Members of NNCK have been involved in numerous side-projects and off-shoots, including Angelblood, Eye Contact, Izititiz, K. Salvatore, Malkuth, Enos Slaughter, Suntanama, Egypt is the Magick #, Test, Coach Fingers, D. Charles Speer & The Helix, and Under Satan's Sun.

Along with their many releases on their own label, Sound@One (or s@1, as it often appears), NNCK has released albums on Ecstatic Yod, New World of Sound, 5RC &, recently, locust music. Singles have been released on Dry Leaf Disks (UK), New World of Sound, and Ecstatic Peace

Ecstatic Peace

Ecstatic Peace! is a record label based in Easthampton, Massachusetts, founded in 1981 by Sonic Youth member Thurston Moore. The premiere release was a split cassette featuring spoken word performances from Michael Gira of Swans and Lydia Lunch...

. Their first studio album was Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones but Names Will Never Hurt Me, produced by Jerry Yester on John Fahey's Revenant Records

Revenant Records

Revenant Records is a record label based in Austin, Texas, which concentrates on folk and blues. Revenant was formed in 1996 by John Fahey and Dean Blackwood...

 after a particular interest on Fahey's part. This was followed by Qvaris on 5RC, and Embryonnck, a collaboration with the German band Embryo

Embryo (band)

Embryo is a musical collective from Munich which has been active since 1969, although its story started in the mid-1950s in Hof where Christian Burchard and Dieter Serfas met for the first time at the age of 10...

 released on Staubgold Records. The most recent releases by the band are Nine for Victor, a recording from a live performance in Quebec

Quebec

Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

 & a 2007 deluxe reissue of the band's privately issued "Live at Ken's Electric Lake" originally released a decade earlier (and with a first gatefold photo of the band by Sara Press

Sara L. Press

Sara L. Press is an American book artist and photographer.Press graduated from Columbia University in 1997, and trained at San Francisco Art Institute, receiving her M.F.A. in printmaking and photography in 2006...

). The band is currently at work on their first full studio engineered recording to see release in 2008 on Chicago's Locust Music

Locust Music

Locust Music is a Chicago-based independent record label founded in 2001....

Discography

• Recorded In Public and Private (1995, Ecstatic Yod)
• Hoichoi (1996, Sound@One)
• Letters From The Earth (1998, SER/Sound@One, 2006 reissue, Very Friendly)
• Letters From The Serth (1998, SER)
• Live at Ken's Electric Lake (1998), 2007 reissue, locust music
• A Tabu Two (1998, New World of Sound)
• The Birth Of Both Worlds (1999, SER/Sound@One)
• Sticks And Stones May Break My Bones But Names Will Never Hurt Me (2001, Revenant, reissued on Sound@One)
• Intonomancy (2002, Sound@One)
• Re: Mr. A Fan (2003, Trademark of Quality)
• Ever Borneo (2003, SER/Sound@One)
• Parallel Easters (2004, Sound@One)
• Dutch Money (2004, SER/Sound@One)
• First Kingdom Of The Ghost (2004, SER/Sound@One)
• The Collective Imaginings of Quantarenius, Cook, & Co (2005, Sound@One)
• Qvaris (2005, 5RC)
• Embryonnck (2006, Staubgold)
• Nine For Victor (2006, Victo)
• Roodemas (2007, Sound@One)
• Clomeim (2008, Locust Music)

External links

• Sound At One
• Artist page at Locust Music
• Kill Rock Stars band factsheet
• Article on Qvaris by Pop Matters
• Current exhibition featuring NNCK
• 77 Boadrum Site Profile Viva Radio, Sep 2007. (Flash
  Adobe Flash
  Adobe Flash is a multimedia platform used to add animation, video, and interactivity to web pages. Flash is frequently used for advertisements, games and flash animations for broadcast...
  
  )