Fennesz: Mosaic

Whilst weak Christian Fennesz albums simply don’t exist, the Austrian experimentalist’s 2019 release, Agora flickered with the same magic as touchstone releases, Endless Summer and Venice. Closing cut alone, We Trigger the Sun, one of best compositions within the Fennesz oeuvre.

Agora was an album that saw Fennesz go beyond the realm in exploring the origins of ’70s glam, throwing it through the sonic mincer as only he knows how. It was Fennesz showcasing an ability to move beyond the majestic environmental-based inspirations that have served him so well over the year for something even more ethereal.

Mosaic, Fennesz’s much-anticipated follow-up sees the guitarist shift the goalposts once again. Composed and recorded at the end of last year in a new studio space, like Agora, Mosaic is a product engineered via strict routine. But unlike the preconceived ideas and mapping out of concepts that eventually formed Agora, Mosaic’s foundation was built within the working paradigm of nine to five. And through the inner grains, it can be heard. Each of the six compositions that comprise of Mosaic, taking their own flight path.

Heliconia is a unique language in itself. Those glacial-like dreamscapes that Fennesz has crafted throughout the years, transcendental in both sound and feel. You simply know a Fennesz piece when you hear it. A frequency only he knows how to reach, and adopting the 7/4 time signature, Loved and Framed Insects taps into the same vein, conjuring up emotional vistas with psychedelia pulsating at the centre of it all.

Personare is like an electric jolt that echoes from one orbit to another, and while Agora saw Fennesz exploring ’70s glam, here his latest source of inspiration is found within the realms of West African pop music. Meanwhile, the droning undercurrents of A Man Outside are designed for the same monolithic sound systems The Bug has taken assault to over the years – this piece, crystalising the same magic Fennesz’s caught alongside Kevin Martin’s King Midas Sound project in 2015’s Edition 1.

Then there’s Patterning Heart. Quintessential Fennesz, mirroring the imagery Mosaic’s artwork. Effortless shifts in tone and texture, here he pulls the mind to the kind of open space where you completely lose track of everything around you. It’s space that reduces with each passing day, but through sound, Fennesz manages to stem the chaos and speed of this new world.

On closing piece, Goniorizon, what initially consisted of six guitar riffs mixed on top of one another is melted down and manipulated into an illusionary collage of swishes and swirls. As he always does with closing stanzas, Fennesz’s proficiency to zone in and execute the perfect composition makes for something richly hypnotic.

It’s the psychedelic experience Fennesz has always been immersed in. Stripping it back, and Mosaic reveals his deep lying passion for rock music. And by dismantling and reconfiguring it in ways only he knows how, Fennesz makes guitar music sound sexy. While his work has been echoed and pilfered throughout the years, there’s only one Fennesz; his methods of refining tone and texture simply can’t be replicated. Mosaic is further proof of that.

Mosaic is out Friday via Touch. Purchase from Bandcamp.