Fennesz

Overview

Viennese electronic producer and ambient guitar wunderkind Fennesz is back in Sydney for the first time in over ten years. For those of you who aren’t already connoisseurs of underground electronica, Fennesz — the eponymous nom de guerre of Christian Fennesz — is a pioneer of genre-bending electronic music. Armed with only a guitar and a computer, he creates shimmering, swirling compositions that, while transcendent, remain firmly rooted in a natural sonic world.

The inherent naturalism of Fennesz’s work may initially seem at odds with his chosen media, however it's a testament to his preternatural talent that this marriage of the natural and the electronic is at once organic and utterly engrossing. As the Rochester City Newspaper put it: “imagine the electric guitar severed from cliché and all of its physical limitations, shaping a bold new musical language".

Fennesz is playing in Sydney for one night only at Carriageworks, and will be joined onstage by his ongoing collaborator, visualist Lillevan. American electronic music icon Keith Fullerton Whitman, whose epic soundscapes are similarly inventive and experimental, will precede the duo with a synthesizer set. This sumptuous audiovisual feast is not to be missed.

Image: Maria Ziegelboeck