Sparklehorse + Fennesz
In The Fishtank 15

At the end of 2007, Sparklehorse aka Mark Linkous and Fennesz, two essential artists in their musical fields (alt-rock for the former and ambient-glitch for the latter), met for a two-day recording session in the Netherlands.

The creator of "In The Fishtank 15" is the Dutch label Konkurrent, which with this collaboration brings the number of volumes published for this project to 15 (which has previously involved Motorpsycho, Dirty Three, Isis, and many others). The seven unreleased tracks that make up the album are characterized by a high degree of experimentation, as one would expect given the mere two days granted for the recording of the tracks. The nine minutes of the opening "Music Box of Snakes" present disorienting atmospheres typical of Fennesz accompanied by instruments like strings more akin to Linkous's aesthetic. The mood of the opening song is further glimpsed in "Goodnight Sweetheart", where Linkous's voice, distorted in a way, emerges as it repeats the two words of the title like a subdued lullaby. After the off-kilter noise of "Shai-Hulud", we arrive at "If My Heart", which juxtaposes Linkous from "Dreamt For Light Years" with Fennesz's familiar sounds.

In the second part of the album, there are two guitar suites, composed almost exclusively by Linkous the first ("Mark's Guitar Piece") and by Fennesz the second ("Christian's Guitar Piece"). Particularly interesting is the concluding "Christian's Guitar Piece" for the use of the acoustic guitar, an exceedingly rare instrument in the Austrian's discography. The sixth track "NC Bongo Buddy" appears to be the only (at times) superfluous piece, in which Fennesz's acidic-noise component is accentuated by Mark's guitar distortions.

"In The Fishtank 15" holds a prominent place both among the works of the In The Fishtank music project and in Sparklehorse's discography, as this collaboration is the last posthumously published work of the late American musician.