Fennesz
Endless Summer

To all those who view the world of electronics with a hint of skepticism, perhaps judging it as a cold and inhuman realm, I highly recommend this "Endless Summer," which warms the heart just as much as a rock record.

Viennese Christian Fennesz represents a season of electronics in which this genre has long since completed its emancipation from rock, and yet reconnects to rock precisely by virtue of a strong and well-defined identity. Call it glitch, call it avant-garde, call it electronic music for electric guitar—what is certain is that Fennesz's abstract art reaches unprecedented heights with this "Endless Summer" (from 2001), a poetic journey with strong emotional content that rediscovers melodies in a context of noise and dissonance.

Brilliant in writing as in execution (the attention to sound is meticulous, and the construction of the various movements' architectures is nothing short of miraculous), it is, in my opinion, the masterpiece of this young musician, who has managed to elevate electronics to a level of humanity that frees it from the cerebral meanderings typical of the genre.

"Endless Summer" is simply a work of art, whose importance lies not in its innovative potential or ability to revolutionize the history of music, but merely in its ability to express and convey emotions. Nothing more, nothing less. It is certainly not an easily assimilable work (Fennesz's music is for refined palates), and at times it can leave one perplexed, especially in moments when it lingers on the side of repetition and the more cerebral noise-making, which nonetheless always respond to a precise poetic intent and never end up being an end in themselves. And perhaps it is precisely this sense of "elusiveness", this inability to fully access it, that gives Fennesz's music a unique and unrepeatable charm.

Fennesz was not born and raised in a vacuum, and even in this work, for example, one can trace elements reminiscent of the art of various Autechre, Merzbow, Jim O'Rourke. However, any comparison, be it with other musicians or with Fennesz's other works, is useless and counterproductive, as it is difficult to find elsewhere such a perfect balance between analog and digital, a place where these two components interweave into such magical alchemy, composing, with equal elegance and refinement, a single and complete emotional flow. A journey, this "Endless Summer," that, among vivid brushstrokes and imperceptible nuances, retraces and reproduces the complexity and inexplicability of the most intimate and personal feelings.

The guitar, for instance, weaves sunny and catchy melodies, simple yet always inspired arpeggios, often repeated many times, while the electronics chop, manipulate, and reassemble sounds into an ever-evolving balance, where as you progress (or better, let yourself be carried away), new elements are miraculously added: ambient phrases, guitar drones, synth brushstrokes, reverbs, rustling, bleeps of every kind, and bursts of minimal noise, at the end of which themes are resumed in an infinity of variations. Sounds fade, branch off, and disperse into tiny sounds until they become dust in the air. The music loses consistency and becomes rarefied, turning into something intangible, elusive, unreachable.

The rhythm is given by the chiaroscuro of the electronics, the volume play of the guitar, a subterranean pulse reminiscent of the gentle motion of the waves, the voices of children on the beach, a flag waving in the sea breeze. The episodes follow like postcards of an ideal vacation that we continue to carry within us, with nostalgia but also with the fullness left by beautiful things. "Endless Summer" carries the taste of a sunset on the late summer beach, the lightness of a small sailboat cruising far off the horizon, it is an anthem to life and is nourished by it, by memories and slices of lived experiences. Of us.

"Endless Summer" is one of the most exciting things your ears might encounter. Take advantage of it before the relentless coils of death envelop you and take you away forever. Memento Mori.