Fennesz

Agora

The significance of this contradiction is unclear, but it deepens the mystery of an already mystifying listen. Agora is both a return to form and a leap into the abyss.

This is an album that is full of glorious melodies, harsh noise and field recordings. Agora is the strongest, and most cohesive, album that Fennesz has released in over a decade, and that is no mean feat.

The unpolished feel of Agora is a bit striking for a Fennesz release, but it's clearly just as carefully considered as his other albums, and makes a welcome addition to his catalog.

Agora is hypnotic, transient and valuable and a rarity which although oppressive at times ultimately delivers on a promise as tangible as it is striking.

Taken in at a moderate volume, the album is easier to consume, but no less dominating. This is about as far from background music as it is possible for an ambient recording to be.

Though this is some of the most wrenching music in the man’s catalog, it’s also the muddiest and least musically interesting.

Much of Agora recalls his 2001 breakthrough album Endless Summer: long, processed guitar drones engendering an atmosphere of extreme, if rather familiar, calm.

Agora is a lot of things, but one thing it is not is corny. But in the process he has sacrificed a whole lot of virtues. Where Fennesz once generated productive frisson in the mind-body continuum of his listeners, now his music stares blankly at them, as if hoping that their and not his affective dispositions will create the passion that sustains worthwhile musical practice.