FENNESZ (AT)

Thursday Sep. 02 – FENNESZ (AT) at 00,00

//////////DAYPASS THURSDAY//////////

Fennesz uses guitar and computer to create shimmering, swirling electronic sound of enormous range and complex musicality. “Imagine the electric guitar severed from cliché and all of its physical limitations, shaping a bold new musical language.” – (City Newspaper, USA). His lush and luminant compositions are anything but sterile computer experiments. They resemble sensitive, telescopic recordings of rainforest insect life or natural atmospheric occurrences, an inherent naturalism permeating each piece.

Christian Fennesz is one of the Vienna’s many artists associated with the noted Mego label, which releases mostly free-form ambient and experimental electronica. Similar in some respects to the work of Seefeel or Experimental Audio Research, Fennesz’s six-string soundscapes are both darker than the former and more complex and intricate than the latter, combining dense, multilayered sheets of treated guitar and synth with thin, odd-metered electronic percussion and engaging sampler work.

A former member of Austrian underground experimental rock group Maische, Fennesz has also collaborated with Mego artist Peter “Pita” Rehberg on his Seven Tons for Free CD, as well as performed ensemble pieces for conceptual and multimedia art installation. His first solo work for Mego, the Instrument EP, was released in 1996, and featured four tracks of stunning, uncompromised ambient and electro-acoustic, combining elements of experimental electro/techno with heavily treated guitar and electronics.

Hotel Paral.lel followed in 1997, and three years later Fennesz returned with Plus Forty Seven Degrees 56′ 37″ Minus Sixteen Degrees 51′ 08″ and Music for an Isolation Tank. Endless Summer, released in 2000, brought him back to the Mego fold, while a string of releases for Touch — Venice (2004), the Ryuichi Sakamoto collaboration Cendre (2007), and Black Sea (2008) significantly raised his profile.

The emphasis on the guitar texture and the burying of pop melodies under layers of effects are common features of Fennesz’s music. Also, the music of the Beach Boys has had an influence on Fennesz, as revealed by his cover of “Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)” on the Plays EP. The Beach Boys influence is mentioned in a Pitchforkmedia interview, in relation to the album title, cover art, and melodic emphasis of his Endless Summer LP.