the people at pitchfork tend to prefer a collection of static ambient artists that includes the like of fennesz and hecker over more sweeping, moving ambient music. they're consistent on this point, and i'd suppose it probably comes down to the personal tastes of some senior writer there. something else they keep coming back to that i find kind of head-scratching is 4tet.

fennesz is something i've tried to get into a whole bunch of times, and i'm just consistently left with the feeling that nothing is really happening. should i be listening more closely? well, i think i'm doing that, already, and that i'm actually pretty good at careful listening. if this is my fault, it's that i'm defining "nothing" as less sparse than others, that my nothing is somebody else's something, but that's the premise of me doing this, isn't it?

historically, fennesz is kind of like what would have happened if the fripp that worked with eno on records like (no pussyfooting) and evening star had become the fripp - if he had denounced his pop work with the gabriels and bowies, and forgotten about reforming crimson, and just did the frippertronics thing. and, is his output worthwhile in that context?

i'd like to hear something more developed from him, and keep hoping i will. this record isn't bad, relative to his previous ones, but it's not the artistic breakthrough i keep hoping for, either.

https://fenneszreleases.bandcamp.com/album/agora