Fennesz, Endless Summer (Mego) 9+
Austria's multitalented Christian Fennesz has been involved in performance, dance theater and film music. His last album, Plus Forty Seven Degrees 56'37" (1999) was a noisy affair, while the Fennesz Plays single was made up of unrecognizable treatments of sixties pop songs. His third full-length, Endless Summer continues those ideas to a more complete conclusion. The cover depicts gauzy oceanfront scenes of gorgeous sunrises/sunsets, displayed on flat digital screens. The displays interfere with the imagery with scan lines. It foreshadows what will be contained within -- feelings of nostalgia, melancholy and euphoria communicated via technology, it's colors and clarity tweaked, enhanced and altered with digital dissonance. Fennesz balances the organic with the artificial perfectly. Feeding guitar leads into a laptop, altering organ pipes and evolving ambient sounds with decayed data, skips and static, this is magic of the subtlest variety. The results are simultaneously alien and familiar, with few reference points to current music aside from "A Year In A Minute," which sounds like My Bloody Valentine via Boards Of Canada, and "Before I Leave" which employs the Oval-pioneered pops and clicks. The many permutations the varied sonic debris offers reward repeated listening, while also managing to communicate undeniably human emotions and experience. For those who've wondered if electronica still matters, add Fennesz to your to-buy list along with Four Tet, Leila, Múm, Amon Tobin and Boards Of Canada.
