Fennesz + Sakamoto - Cendre

Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeet! From Pitchfork:

In a bid to make the coming spring endless, Mr. Christian Fennesz, laptop provocateur, will unleash his illustrious electronic sounds upon the gathered hordes at a number of European festivals next month. While this is wondrous news for residents of and folks happening through Vilnius, Lithuania, and Ljubljana, Slovenia, it leaves the rest of us a bit cold, and even more desperately in need of a sick Fennesz fix.

Fortunately, not long after his tour, Fennesz will reprise his collaboration with noted composer Ryuichi Sakamoto (The Last Emperor, etc.). The pair's Cendre follows up 2005's Fennesz Sakamoto one-track EP Sala Santa Cecilia and arrives Stateside via Touch on May 15. Cendre collects 11 new joint efforts and has Mr. Fennesz tearing it up on the guitar and laptop, while Mr. Sakamoto throws it down on piano and laptop. That shit is hot.

Keep those ears perked, as Touch should have a Fennesz full-length proper on the way in late 2007.

Cendre:

01 Oto

02 Aware

03 Haru

04 Trace

05 Kuni

06 Mono

07 Kokoro

08 Cendre

09 Amorph

10 Glow

11 Abyss

Two Fennesz-albums in 2007. Amazing. I wonder how the new "solo"-album will sound like. He seem to get more and more accessible for every release. Do not make a pop album, mr fennesz!

ohmigosh. This is gonna be brill. I loved Sala Santa Cecilia, and a whole album like it will be breathtaking...

Brilliant. Though I must say I'm looking forward to his solo album more.

it leaked. somehow it seems like there's more of both sakamoto and droning with clicking while simultaneously being kind of underwhelming.

oh well, the collab with sparklehorse should be fun.

FUCK YEAH, LJUBLJANA!!

Yeah, P-Fork is still ghey...

i have never visited pitchfork

  LUDD said:

i have never visited pitchfork

*slap* get out of my store, please!

Boomkat has samples up here, and this is what they had to say:

How do I begin a review like this then? Firstly, I should probably let you know the obvious, that you just can't go any further without owning this release. The fact that you're on this site and reading this review assumes you're of a certain musical disposition, and if you are in any way interested in the more beautiful things in life, the sensitive yet experimental end of modern music then you simply need this album. Hell even if you're not into that stuff, chances are you'll hear 'Cendre' and be converted; it's a thing of immese beauty. I first heard it a few weeks back, a lone promo tip-toed its way up to the office and I pounced like a wild animal. Christian Fennesz and Sakamoto working on a full album together? It was like a dream come true, and I hadn't even heard it yet. That evening I slotted the disc into my cd player and just sat in awe as it played through - rather than go down the route of their previous short-form collaboration 'Sala Saint Cecilia' (which was drifting and sometimes impenetrable), this was an album focused on harmony and gracefulness. Taking the best of Sakamoto's piano work (think 'Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence' and you're on the right track) and the best of Fennesz's production work ('Endless Summer', 'Venice', 'Blemish) 'Cendre' feels like the perfect meeting of minds - and while it might be obvious to reference Sakamoto's high-profile collaborative work with Carsten Nicolai, these two musicians seem much more evenly matched. Sakamoto's haunting motifs are wrapped up in sheets of harmonic noise, but it never becomes overwhelming, it never becomes too much to handle, rather this is an album which revolves around subtlety and restraint. No doubt you will have heard the best of Fennesz before, but I promise you, you have never really heard him like this - the emphasis here is on an almost Zen-like calmness and the restraint around which the two have balanced the album is just hard to fathom. It's the sort of record that can change your mood, but without resorting to cliché or emphasis on 'ambience'; it is optimistic and life-affirming but never over-wraught, I wouldn't even say that it is sentimental. Cendre, rather, is an album that you can imagine piecing together your own stories to, an album which is primed for you to remember ten or twenty years down the line, to remember the experiences you had listening to it with a hazy, warm nostalgia and a heavy heart. For us here it's the sort of album that reminds us why we are obsessed music, the sort of album that has us rabid with excitement about sharing it with everyone, shouting from the rooftops about just how damn good it is - and in our minds it's about as good as it gets. I don't even think I need to mention Eno or Harold Budd do I? Absolutely gorgeous, and without a doubt one of the finest records this year - they don't come any lovelier than this...

i'm very interested in the fact that fennesz is working with mark 'static king' linkous from sparklehorse at the moment.

Yep, read the Boomkat review and checked the samples- I'm very happy that this is exactly what I hoped it could be Sakamoto focused on nice melodies and processing/noise/texture provided by Fennesz- pretty much the exact album I want to hear right about now! Working with Sparklehorse huh... that could be interesting...

I've got a bootleg from 2003, fennesz live with sparklehorse. There's a few tracks that sound more like fennesz and a few that sound like what I imagine sparklehorse sound like, but with fennesz in the band. that second type isn't actually as interesting as I'd have hoped, but I mean, since that was 4 years ago, I'm hoping they take that shit to the next level on this year's release. but the stuff that sounds more like fennesz is GREAT!

I'm uploading the bootleg to sendspace now, it'll be a half hour or so.

thanks for this one, i'm also curious about this upcoming collab

i'm imagining 'it's a wonderful life' with digital static as opposed to analogue and it's a very appetising prospect

this is like nice easy listening but not quite there

this reminds me too much of the Road To Perdition score

i mean its a few rnadom chords with some buzzing in the background

but then thats most electronic music for you.

This is quite possibly one of the most beautiful albums I've ever heard. Simply gorgeous stuff.

I like it a whole lot, too. really guud.

Is it much like that last Fennesz Sakamoto cd? That ones pretty boring.

  Captain Hideous said:

Is it much like that last Fennesz Sakamoto cd? That ones pretty boring.

:omg: :pinch: Get out of this thread!!!!

And yes, it's kind of like a mellower version of Fennesz's previous work with Sakamoto playing some really beautiful piano- which is pretty much perfection...

I'd say it's very different to the Sala Santa Cecilia CD (not that I didn't like that single/ep). It's kinda like Max Richter but slightly less sentimental, crossed with Eno warmth and lightly drizzled with crunchy Fennesz grainy-salsa. Put on a nice analogue warmth mastering and serve on some nice headphones as you lay in bed at night.

it really isnt all that some very simple piano chords like i said if you want real piano go listen to chopin

and the fuzz well its fuzz

i still like it tho but its being praised a little too highly.