Fennesz: "Black Sea" (Touch, 2008)

Christian Fennesz is one of a handful of people from experimental electronic music's late-1990s halcyon days still kicking around. Where others have disappeared (Oval), taken on a curatorial role (Gas), or resigned themselves to arms-length abstraction (Autechre), Fennesz has evolved his aesthetic and found new avenues of expression. In the last few years he's released two albums with Ryuichi Sakamoto, collaborated with Mike Patton and guitarist Burkhard Stangl, knocked out some remixes, and created music for dance and films. He's been busy, but people who don't follow this music closely probably haven't noticed. They've been waiting for a new solo album, preferably something that might cross over from the "electronic music" racks in the way that 2001's monumental Endless Summer did. But Fennesz's unhurried approach to his solo work has yielded dividends. Since he takes so long between proper Fennesz records, the release of a new one still feels like an event.

Black Sea, which again finds Fennesz working primarily with guitar and computer, is his first solo album since 2004's Venice, the follow-up to Endless Summer. It's tempting to compare this record with its predecessor based on the characteristically striking cover art, once again by Touch label founder Jon Wozencroft. Where the Venice sleeve featured a lone rowboat bobbing in rich and impossibly blue water, Black Sea sports a shot of an industrial skyline across a filthy-bottomed straight at low tide. The image and title suggest that we're in for something colder and comparatively grim, and even though that's only partly true, such subtle shading via imagery has always been important with Fennesz albums. What is apparent right off the bat is that Black Sea finds Fennesz painting on an especially large canvas. While some may hope for a partial return to the pop-like miniatures of Endless Summer, tracks that could be thought of as "songs," these feel more like classical pieces-- sweeping and symphonic and patiently unfolding.

From http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/node/147846