It often feels as though we are living in a golden age of glitched out ambient music, as evidenced by the work of artists such as Ulla and KMRU. It’s difficult to imagine this present musical landscape without the work of one Christian Fennesz, who along with other artists on the Mego and Mille Plateaux labels helped pioneer the usage of the laptop as a musical instrument. But even as computer music has evolved dramatically in the almost thirty years since his debut with Hotel paral.lel, Fennesz continues to operate in a field of his own. This latest release, Mosaic, is Fennesz at his most cinematically emotional. The catharsis at times risks spilling into soundtrack-type material, but Fennesz’s trademark textural warmth keeps the music immersive and involving at all times.
The album opens with ‘Heliconia’, a dramatic oasis of bit-crushed textures. The second part of the nine-minute opener highlights Fennesz’s guitar playing, whose tone, abstracted by waves of computer processing, is as beautiful as ever. ‘Love and the Framed Insects’ is a melancholic piece, whose layers of electronic distortion and fuzz mask dynamic time signatures. The music has a choppy, wavelike flow to it, shimmering in its decay. ‘Personare’ is perhaps the most grand and dramatic gesture on the album. It’s supposedly influenced by West African pop, but its noisy haze evokes William Basinski by way of Kevin Shields more than anything out of West Africa. ‘Patterning Heart’ is a blissed-out ambient reverie, and though there’s an infinite amount of ambient guitar pedal music that sounds just like it, it’s still deeply captivating in its unabashed prettiness.
Taken as a whole, Mosaic occupies a peculiar space within Fennesz’s greater discography. It lacks the saturated abstraction of his records dating from the 2000s and the head-spinning psychedelia of more recent records like 2014’s Bécs. Its closest analogue would be his previous solo record Agora, but whereas that record felt like a study in minimalist textures and drones, Mosaic feels more focused on the sonic progression of the individual pieces and the emotional response that they trigger within the listener. If any criticism can be made of this record, it’s that it doesn’t really break any new ground. That being said, even if Mosaic at times feels like Fennesz operating within his comfort zone, it’s still a deeply rewarding listen that could not have been made by anyone other than Fennesz himself. Though one could point to similarly hazy and lush ambient releases coming out on any given week, there’s still no-one bringing this particular level of craft to these types of soundscapes.
