This is Christian Fennesz' 2nd solo full album after the highly acclaimed 'Hotel Paral.lel' (Mego 16). At the beginning of 1999, he released 'fenneszPLAYS', a CD/single of radical treatments of Rolling Stones/Beach Boys classics on Jim O'Rourke's new label, Moikai. Fennesz has also made various contributions to compilation CDs, including the awesome 'Surf' on 'DECAY' (Ash International 3.9); with Jim O'Rourke and Peter Rehberg he is a member of Fennoberg; he also plays with the Laptop Orchestra and Orchestra 33 1/3. Fennesz was recently honoured with a prize at this years Ars Electronica festival in Linz, Austria, which he promptly tried to break in disgust at the festival organisers' bias towards sponsor politics.
plus forty seven degrees 56' 37' minus sixteen degrees 51' 08' was recorded by Fennesz during July and August this summer, transforming his back garden into an open air studio, using only guitar and Powerbook. The tension between source and process has produced a
powerful and hypnotic work, with echoes of My Bloody Valentine's classic 'Loveless' album of 1991... maybe a digital update of textures and fractured rhythms explored by Brian Eno on 'Another Green World'.
The first pressing of plus forty seven degrees 56' 37' minus sixteen degrees 51' 08' is available in a strictly limited slipcase edition. A lush photographic treatment by Jon Wozencroft contrasts Fennesz's rich soundscapes with images that attempt to capture the outerworldy
atmosphere of places where man has manipulated 'natural' environments into new forms and functions.'