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- By date
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Suffice to say that with all its slowly blooming beauty, alluring aberrations, and deftly measured brute force, the closest analogue to what Fennesz has done on Black Sea seems to be nature itself.
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Black Sea is positively huge while also being much more accessible. You get a sense here of how far Fennesz has come, how far his music reaches, and the unexplored possibilities that still exist.
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Over the course of the album's 52 minutes, the eight tracks reveal a brilliance in construction.
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The low tide image on the cover Black Sea suggests that this process of covering and uncovering is cyclical, and the music bears it out by adding a welcome bit of noise and depth to some stately and slowly evolving melodies.
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UncutOn 'The Colour Of Three' and 'Glide,' Fennesz once again proves himself a match for the Kevin Shields of 'To Here Knows When' or "The Coral Sea." [Feb 2009, p.80]
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MojoThe sun's gone out and here is the soundtrack to our long, dark financial winter. [Mar 2009, p.114]
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Vaguely melodious, embedded with overtones, sometimes placid and sometimes stormy, Black Sea is like a wave in that its diverse parts meld together to form a powerful, all-encompassing entity.
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As it stands, Black Sea is a solid, if not entirely groundbreaking.
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The first is a human trait that seems necessary to enjoy ambient music at all, but which may have been compromised by Fennesz’s more pop proclivities: patience. Spend some quality time with Black Sea, and it begins to open up.
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Black Sea is a headphone album, packed with fragile, briefly presented sounds that seem in constant danger of escaping unheard.
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While it’s not as compelling as Endless Summer, it’s the closest Fennesz has come to returning to that plateau.
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Q MagazineThere's a mesmeric quality to the layering of divergent sonic textures. [Mar 2009, p.98]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 6 out of 9
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Mixed: 2 out of 9
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Negative: 1 out of 9
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Dec 11, 2014