Christian Fennesz is an Austrian musician, and Endless Summer was originally released in 2001; its been reissued with new (and superior) cover art and two extra tracks. Its a delicious album: like Boards Of Canada meeting My Bloody Valentine, it marks the point where music recedes into pure texture, like some experiment from the furthest reaches of Enos imagination. Found rhythms that seem to have come from the random loops generated by the locked grooves at the ends of vinyl sides lope through pixelated soundscapes; its like finding sweet music in the static between radio stations, the sonic equivalent of stereoscope pictures.
During A Year In A Minute fluffy wisps of distortion rise and fall on a tidal melody, and Caecilia gently gurgles its misheard tunes and half-forgotten rhythms in the listeners ear. Before I Leave emulates the woodpecker ticking of a badly scratched CD to surprisingly musical effect, whilst Badminton Girl bounces like Zebedee with a contact mic. The albums hypnotic magnum opus is the charmingly titled 11-minute Happy Audio, in which lock groove rhythms are gradually consumed by flickering static.
Endless Summer is the kind of album like, but also completely unlike, of course, Trout Mask Replica that requires the listener to suspend disbelief, and at least attempt to cast aside their preconceptions about what constitutes music, to meet it halfway. Blinkers off, it can be a sublime experience.