Drone Records

FENNESZ - Becs

Format: LP

Label & Cat.Number: Editions Mego eMEGO 165

Release Year: 2014

Note: first FENNESZ solo-album since 'Black Sea" (2008), which goes again more into the atmospheric 'abstract pop' direction well-grounded with the famous "Endless Summer" album in 2001=> timeless harmonic driftmusic with enough rawness, surprising elements and unusual arrangements to fascinate again; feat. diverse guest-musicians such as TONY BUCK (THE NECKS); comes in gatefold cover

Price (incl. 19% VAT): €16.00

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"The last time Fennesz released an album on Austrian label Mego it was 2001 and the name of that release was 'Endless Summer'. Now, in 2014 Editions Mego is extremely proud to release the conceptual follow up that landmark of abstract pop. Bécs (pronounced 'baeetch') is Hungarian for Vienna and is the first full length Fennesz solo release since 2008's 'Black Sea'. Eschewing the more drone orientated works of 'Black Sea', 'Bécs' returns to the more florid pop mechanisms as deployed on Endless Summer. 'Static Kings' features the extra leverage of Werner Dafeldecker and Martin Brandlmayer who deploy a range of atmospheric abstract effects to shape a bewitching sound world. The 10 minute centrepiece 'Liminality' (featuring Tony Buck on drums) is classic Fennesz: epic, evocative, beautiful, impossible. 'Pallas Athene' creates a sanctuary of hovering beauty which leads into the title track. Emotional and assured, the track Bécs' is an astonishing contribution to contemporary pop. 'Sav' (co-written by Cédric Stevens aka Acid Kirk) inhabits a less structural terrain as one enters a forest of small sounds and oblique atmospheres, where the closing 'Paroles', a gentle melody unravels amongst swirls of electronics and fried disruption. Bécs is not just an album or a series of songs, it's a world to inhabit, a landscape ripe with sounds, songs and that esteemed Fennesz signature. A singular work by a singular artist. All tracks by Christian Fennesz, except 'Sav' by Cédric Stevens & Christian Fennesz. Modular Synthesizer on 'Sav' by Cédric Stevens. Bass on 'Static Kings' by Werner Dafeldecker. Drums on 'Static Kings' by Martin Brandlmayr. Drums on 'Liminality' by Tony Buck. Recorded & mixed at Amann Studios, Vienna, 2013/14. Mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin. Cover design by Tina Frank." [label info]

www.editionsmego.com

"Aside from a couple of respectable collaborations and some soundtrack work, Christian Fennesz hasn't released a proper solo album since the album Black Sea, which came out on Touch WAY back in 2008. On Becs, Fennesz returns to the label that introduced him to the world, in Editions Mego; and he pretty much continues along the same path that he set for himself on that last album he recorded for them, the much lauded Endless Summer from 2001. That was a fracturous record of polygonal melodies bathed in a candy-crush fuzz of pixelated, shoegazing blur, always alluding to the sunkissed glow of the California Dream, whatever that may be. Becs may not have the advantage of following up one hell of a single by Fennesz (in the very late '90s, he covered The Beach Boys and The Rolling Stones, the latter of which was originally commissioned for tUMULt's Painted Black anthology!), whereby he contextualized his sonic dislocation within the lineage of rock'n'roll and all of its mythologies of dissent, rebellion, sex, and whatnot. Yeah, it's a tough act to follow; but Becs is a wildly adventurous album with a substantial parity when it comes to the risk/reward equation. A heavily flanged, blindingly bright corona of digital treatments surrounds the Fennesz' guitar sound at the album's introduction, with all of the soft melodies buried in twinkling electronics and mirrored refractions. Fennesz follows this with a detuned alarm-call pulse that forms an insistently crawling rhythmic structure blasted with a malleable distortion, which in turn he counterpoints with a gorgeous, cathedral drone of sustained harmonics. An incremental retinal burn of guitar distortion shapes the brilliant track "Liminality" built upon a beautifully bittersweet, slowcore guitar chord whose roots lie in Slint, Codeine, or maybe even the Durutti Column. Sparkling ambient passages beget discordant piano treatments akin to a computer-cracked Angelo Badalamenti which in turn beget more blossoming noise. Fucking brilliant." [Aquarius Records]