Newly available on the Fennesz Bandcamp site today is this ambient piece, previously released on Longform Editions.
Fennesz writes: “The piece was recorded in the last days of May 2024. I discarded my original concepts for this piece right after starting the work. This was partly due to the fact that I happened to listen to a piece by Roland S. Howard that day, who I consider one of the greatest guitarists. So, I started again with a blank canvas. I focused on the essential components and instruments that had defined my work so far: guitars, string instruments in general and samples thereof, as well as a few synthesizers with a particular focus on the now largely forgotten synthesis principle of physical modelling. Microtonality and the decay behaviour of strings were important to me. The piece, conceived as a sound installation, is meant to blend into everyday soundscapes and occasionally stand out. However, it can also be listened to at full volume on headphones.”
The composition process for Christian Fennesz’s eighth album was relatively swift. Mosaic was written and recorded at the end of 2023 and completed in the summer of 2024, using a new studio space in the composer’s home city of Vienna.
Experimentation is at its heart, from the collection of ideas through a process of improvisation and development. In the making of Mosaic Fennesz was able to use unusual time signatures (Love and the Framed Insects being in 7/4 rather than the most-used 4/4) while influences come from far and wide, such as West African pop (Personare) and a collage of hard rock riffs (Gonionrizon)
What’s the music like?
Spacious. This is a beautiful audio experience, especially on headphones, where Fennesz places the listener in a position to end the listening experience in a place of extreme calm.
Not all the music is calm however, for the compelling Love and the Framed Insects has an engrossing dialogue, becoming more jagged in its appearance, as though portraying the side of a mountain or the slow movement of a glacier. Personare has tracer lines that cut through the texture.
Contrasting with the sharper sounds are the incredibly restful scenes of Heliconia and A Man Outside. The former takes shape gradually, finding solid ground as its chords grow in stature but then moving to slow, processed guitar loops that add charm to the experience. A Man Outside is taken by the sonic breeze, its lines drifting this way in that as though in the late afternoon sun.
Patterning Heart is a thing of beauty, a slowly oscillating drone whose shape is dictated by an ebb and flow of the sonic tide, the sound occasionally swelling as Fennesz applies distortion to the guitar. The collage of riffs, Gonionrizon, is fascinating, a kaleidoscope of colour that continually changes as though a spectral organ is being played.
Does it all work?
It does – and as the press release mentions, Mosaic is a natural follow-on from Venice, though the boat in the cover art is much bigger and the water less calm. A reflection of the world, it would seem.
Is it recommended?
Yes, enthusiastically. There is a beguiling warmth and space to Fennesz’s work here, an album that links together in a wide spectrum of sound. From whispered ambience to dazzling beauty, it’s all here.
For fans of… Tim Hecker, Loscil, Stars Of The Lid, A Winged Victory for the Sullen
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