By Aeron Bergman

A Strange and unnatural glow surrounds this CD, and reminds me how much I hate the word genius. This word is a pie in the face and a hyperbole for both the assigner and assignee. The word genius denies both the humanity of the person being so-called, and pokes a stick in the eye of fellow humans toiling day in and day out on all sides of said genius. As smart as Einstein was, he could not stop his discoveries from contributing to a really nasty bomb. Brian Wilson's genius seems to be undebated among contemporary musicians, however his underpaid gardener probably only sees a drug addicted sociopath, who's ultra catchy (like a virus) tunes hardly did alot of good for humanity, let alone his family. Bill Gates is super way gone whooee brilliant, ok, sure: let's see him do something aside from move money around like any other merchant. However, Paco the merchant selling shoes down on the village square, for as brainless and simple as he is supposed to be, has managed to put his kids through university by replacing worn heels: this is genius in many ways. Writers don't get this even though they throw around the word like a frisbee.

Meanwhile, we have this CD, packaged rather poorly in cheeseball photoshop beach images. There are good things about bad things about the disc. Both the opening and the closing tracks are quite heart wrenching in their sincerity and evocation. At his most lucid, Fennesz manages to capture the sound of a pop tune from a distance -- a mysterious and magnetic feeling of soaring familiarity. But when he lacks vision, his tracks tracks sound like just that ol' tune again. Tracks 6 and 7 for example are clumsy and annoying; both technically and emotionally stunted.

My point is that Endless Summer is a CD made by a human, and thus contains moments of clarity, and moments of failure, like any other work by a human, Germanic or otherwise. The press release says "the perfect balance" between analogue and digital. Whatever. You can't blame Fennesz for his hype, he is just a guy making some sounds.

When I saw Christian Fennesz perform live at the Ertz festival in the lovely village of Bera, Euskadi, the result was not a perfect balance, to say the least. He and his companion fell asleep in the hotel room before the show, slept through their alarm clock, and finally an hour after Fennesz was supposed to be onstage, Charlemeigne Palestine, who was staying in the room next door, had to go wake them up for the show. Fennesz arrived shaken and embarrased, set up his powerbook quickly, and gave a really uncommited performance that failed to utilize either his own material, the performance space, or the audience, in any engaging way. In fact, he seemed to just hit play on his new Endless Summer CD, and continue sleeping. But you know, that's how it goes. You can't blame the guy or the situation, this is life, he was tired.

The risk of failure at any minute is the human condition, even a genius is constantly on the edge of a fuck up. Fuck ups are what makes art and life so interesting, and the "G" word so stupid.

Endless summer is a pretty good CD.