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Experimental ambient visionary artist Christian Fennesz will perform his famous album Endless Summer, which gave him an international recognition in 2001. This cinematic recording naturally becomes an immersive multi-media live happening at the Maison symphonique on Saturday August 29. Fennesz will be joined by his friend and colleague Lillevan, internationally known as a brilliant multimedia artist. Since 25 years, this Fennesz’s summer has been endless indeed, and it’s pursuing its magic in Montreal through new forms without avoiding the core of this seminal recording.
Since the early 1990s, the Austrian musician has embraced guitar playing with an in-depth harmonic / melodic knowledge, coupled with a large range of pedals. In fact, Fennesz imagined a singular fusion of his guitar playing with electronic sound processing, analog or digital. He explored much more than ambient music as we imagine it, his sound expanded also with noise and drone, and became absolutely unique.
Fennesz reimagined the electric guitar through electronic processing, but melody and harmony remained a foundation for his sound surrounded by saturation, noise and drone.
For all those aspects of his fabulous music, Alain Brunet reached him in Vienna, before his MTL show at MUTEK.
PAN M 360 : So you’re going to perform this reinterpretation of Endless Summer with
Lillevan, who is a renowned film director and video artist. And I’m sure you won’t play it the same way you did it 25 years ago. Am I right, Christian?
Christian Fennesz : Yes, that’s right. I mean, I was still trying to keep the core of it, the essence of the album, but the problem was that many parts were not available anymore. They just got lost. Some of the sessions just disappeared, so I had to recreate it somehow.
Not everything, but parts of it. And while I was doing that, I was trying to keep the original sound, but also add something that sounds a bit more like 2026, but without changing it, without changing the atmosphere and the overall style. But, you know, it just sounded nicer on my new systems when I used some modern tools, new plugins and stuff like that.
PANN M 360 : Yeah, it’s interesting to revisit an album that had a great success. Endless Summer led you to an international recognition at that time, and since then you’re evolving through many circuits of music, while building on the same foundation.
Christian Fennesz : Yes, well, of course, things have changed. Back in the days, I started trying to explore computer music with the guitar, and using digital tools in combination with the guitar and pedals that I’m using. In the meantime, electronic music and equipment and gear have changed so much. There’s so many options today and it’s even sometimes a problem to have too many options! So, I have hundreds of plugins, but sometimes I’m just using the same four or five, because there are too many options. So it’s very important to find a few tools that you feel comfortable with, and tools that can really help you develop your music. Otherwise, you just get lost. And I think that’s the main problem today. And of course, it was the same for me. I mean, I could have gone in so many different directions.
PAN M 360 : More precisely, what has changed since Endless Summer?
Christian Fennesz : In the end, it remained more or less the same, but it became more polished from time to time. There’s more bass, for example. And yeah, and this was, for this reinterpretation, the tools have been very helpful. But you know, it hasn’t changed so much. Well, we never try, basically, we are what we are. And we try to, you know, make ourselves better.
PAN M 360 : No artist can change the basis of his artistic personality. It comes from the unconscious, anyone has a way for expressing this specific personality. That being said, can you pinpoint some elements of the artist’s evolution?
Christian Fennesz : I can also add other examples., I’ve been using synthesizers much more lately, because there are very interesting tools. Of course, there is the modular synthesizer scene but there’s also a lot going on with the digital synthesizers at the moment.
PAN M 360 : Well, you’re not a purist of digital, you’re exploring So you are not a purist, you explore both electronic worlds, digital and analog, don’t you?
Christian Fennesz : Yes, I use both. But I’m trying to keep it simple and slim somehow, you know, I would always be able to travel with a studio, at least with some kind of studio so I can produce on the road. That’s very important to me. I mean, I’ve been downsizing a lot over the years, I have so much stuff, you know, I had a really big, like a traditional recording studio. In the meantime, it’s just one table with a few things that I need, and I feel much more comfortable with this. Yeah, it’s more about downsizing at the moment for me, instead of expanding.
PAN M 360 : Well, it’s also a proof of maturity. When an artist gets older, the next step is trying to make it apparently simple.
Christian Fennesz : Yes, apparently simple, that’s true. You know, I think I have developed some kind of musical language for me. And what I’m doing is making it more, I don’t know, well, at least for me making it more perfect, more, you know, striking, and more interesting to me, personally, you know. And what I do is throw away all the stuff that’s not necessary, and just keep the core of it.
PAN M 360 : So, what will happen In Montreal ? We obviously know that it will be an immersive audiovisual experience at MUTEK. Please tell us about the history of your relationship with Lillevan and the way it transforms Endless Summer.
Christian Fennesz : I’ve been working with Lillevan, on and off for so many years. But I got an offer from the Bozar (in Brussels) to perform the whole Endless Summer music last June.
We played it for the first time there, that will be the second time in Montreal. So it’s gonna be an audiovisual performance. Berlin based Lillevan has a huge screen to fill. He has parts prepared, but he’s also a great improviser. So, the show is always a bit different.
You have to imagine that he works like a musician as well with his material, with his visuals. And that’s a great combination, I think. He’s very flexible. He can react very fast.
PAN M 360 : Can you give us some elements of the visual aspects ont this immersive concert? How does it blend with your masterpiece?
Christian Fennesz : Well, it’s often based on colors. He likes the same kind of colors that I like for that music, there’s a lot of orange, a lot of green, for example. And the great thing about him is he can be totally full of images and at the same time, he can be very minimalistic. I like these changes that he’s able to do within seconds, that changes the whole atmosphere as well. As much as the music can do that, as well the visuals can do it.
So, it’s a constant kind of playing together. It’s like playing with a musician.
PAN M 360 : From the late Ryuichi Sakamoto to David Sylvian or Lillevan, from calm ambient music to violent sounds, you’ve always been involved in different kinds of interpretation and approaches.
Christian Fennesz : Yes, well, this is something I’m always interested in, because I find some kind of melancholy and beauty within all this chaos and noise. And I always hear a melody or a sequence of melodies, I always hear the chords somehow within a piece of noise. And once I catch this, I can make a composition.
PAN M 360 : How come the guitar remains so important? Now you could generate comparable sounds to yours without a guitar, without a pedal set, but only with synthesizers or other digital softwares. So, why do you keep the guitar?
Christian Fennesz : Because it’s my first instrument. And it’s the instrument I still feel the best with and I feel rooted somehow. It’s something in my hands that connects me to earth. At least that’s the feeling I get. But of course, I could do everything with digital tools or synthesizers as well. But I do believe there’s always, sound-wise, there’s always a little difference with the guitar because it’s not so precise. At least when I play guitar, it’s never as precise as when you record a synthesizer. There’s always a gap in between downs.
It’s not super straight played, not super exactly played. And that’s this little kind of, I don’t know, almost punk-rock kind of approach or bluesy kind of approach, however you want to call it.
PAN M 360 : Of course, when you became a guitar player, you were interested in blues and rock and jazz, didn’t you?
Christian Fennesz : Yes. And I’m still a guitarist. That’s the most simple answer to your question.
PAN M 360 : What you say is absolutely true : it remains guitar playing.Even if we are somewhere else, it remains guitar.
Christian Fennesz : Yeah, it does. At the same time, I’m very, very interested in electronic music. I’m still doing what I’ve always been doing : trying to put these two things together, electronic music and guitar playing. Yeah.
PAN M 360 : Are you still collaborating with other guys? In the previous decades, you worked with Peter Rehberg and Jim O’Rourke for this great project Van O’Berg, 4 albums have been released.
Christian Fennesz : Well, recently, I’ve been touring with Jim O’Rourke again. Yeah, we played in Belgium and then we did a little Italian tour, which was very nice, just the two of us. But also there were two shows together with his partner, Eiko Ishibashi. She played with us. So that’s one thing I’m still doing at the moment. Other collaborations are not planned now.
PAN M 360 : You’re mainly a solo artist, can we say that?
Christian Fennesz : Yes, but I do like to collaborate sometimes because , I just feel too much alone a solo artist. I need to meet people and other musicians and interact.
PAN M 360 : A good friend of mine saw you performing in Venice last spring. You redid your Venice album (2014)..
Christian Fennesz : Yes, exactly. That was another invitation to play another album in its entirety. That was great.
PAN M 360 : You were one of the pioneers of this melodic ambient/drone/noise approach, like Richard Pinhas or Julien Desprez, for example.
Christian Fennesz : Probably… I don’t really think about it.. I just met Oren Ambarchi after a long time, and we played together. We just shared the same bill, also in Italy. This whole ambient noise community, you know, these people always meet once in a while on different stages. I also think that Caterina Barbieri’s music is great. I meet her sometimes too. I would definitely forget someone if I try to name them. I’m always open to listen to music from colleagues and also meet them as much as I can.
PAN M 360 : What is also interesting in your music is that you always come back to melodies and tonal/modal chords, and you include that in an atonal music, noise or drone. So there’s a link between your past and present.
Christian Fennesz : Yeah, because I love both worlds. Again, it’s very simple!
PAN M 360 : Do you listen a lot of music of your type?
Christian Fennez : Not very much, to be honest. I’d rather listen to a Miles Davis album or attend a Johann Sebastian Bach’s music concert.
PAN M 360 : It makes sense, knowing that you’re based in Vienna, a true capital for classical music.
Christian Fennez : Exactly. You know, listening intensively to music in my own field makes me a bit nervous haha! So I’m trying to avoid it as much as I can, unless I’m playing in a festival and someone I know is also performing; it’s always fascinating to see them perform, you know. Because sometimes, OMG this person has understood that software a lot better than I did!
PAN M 360 : Your last album, Mosaic, was released in 2024. So are you working on a new one?
Christian Fennesz : Yes. That’s why I’m not doing any collaboration at the moment, I want to really focus on my new music after .
PAN M 360 : When you compose, do you think about renewing yourself or do you just let it flow and then something happens?
Christian Fennesz : I let it flow. I’m very happy if something happens. I didn’t think about any concept before, so I’m happy when one emerges. ThenI can start building something. It’s more like finding the flow. That’s the biggest thing.
