Right from the first few minutes of the opening track
Rivers of Sand Christian Fennesz is able to capture your mind and imagination with his unique “shoegaze electronica” style. It’s easy to draw similarities between
Venice and My Bloody Valentine’s epic shoegazer classic,
Loveless. Both are filled with dense layers of noise and colorful sounds creating an enthralling atmosphere. Much like Kevin Shields Christian Fennesz would take a simple melody consisting of a couple of notes and add as many layers of noise and glitchy keyboard effects over it to create a homogenous mixture of mesmerizing textures and sounds.
To be honest Fennesz actually pulls off this type of sound really well. While many other electronica solo acts wind up blending together sounds that make my ears bleed Christian is able to capture my attention for forty minutes. On tracks such as
Chateau Rouge and
City of Light he takes an effortless keyboard melody and adds on multiple layers of noise and static to spawn a hypnotizing sound. The aspect that makes
Venice so great is how it’s able to generate such an imaginative feeling while still remaining minimal in it’s compositions. It’s incredible how songs like
Circassion, which just consists of droning guitars and glitchy laptop effects can just take you to another place without being overly produced or fancy.
Although
Venice sports many droning electronica tunes there’s also some variety to keep the listener from dozing off.
Transit is the poppiest and easily the most melodic track, anchored by deep organ notes and David Sylvians low, chilling vocals
Transit gives the listener a break from the dreamy, instrumental melancholia of the album.
The Point of It All leans towards the influences of ambient originators such as Brian Eno as it consists of sparse keyboard tones and lush layers of....well....... more keyboards.
There really isn’t much more that I can say about Mr. Fennesz or his fourth full length studio album,
Venice. Although a lot of the music is just noisy guitars and keyboards layered on top of each other to create a trance-inducing effect Fennesz is able to pull it off with beauty. The lush production plays a big role in this, this is one of the few “noise/electronic/drone” albums that’s able to capture my attention and hold it. While
Venice may lack catchy melodies or interesting sounds it makes up for it with lush production, beautiful imagery, and captivating soundscapes.
