Customer Reviews

In the Fishtank 15 [Vinyl]

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Leaning sharply toward the textured soundscapes of Fennesz, this one-off collaboration is a nice addition to the Fishtank series, and all the more poignant after Mark Linkous' untimely passing. Linkous and Fennesz patiently develop the first few tracks, using a sonic vocabulary familiar to those who've previously digested "Endless Summer" or "Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot," but without a lot of evidence of Sparklehorse's easy songcraft at first. The cello drones, static, and electronic burbles of opening track "Music Box Of Snakes" unfold slowly over nine minutes; elegaic, stately, and faltering: a bit-damaged soundtrack worthy of Eno, but distinct in its own disregard of itself. Sounds clash and decay, or emerge in awkward splendor. It passes by rather quickly, for being three times the length of your average radio pop tune.

Linkous' influence is more overt on "Good Night Sweetheart" which could have been an outtake from "Vivadixie...," perhaps one that was left out in the sun, etched in copper and allowed to succumb to verdigris. The simple vocal is repeated under a distressed bed of elongated sounds, submerged and yearning.

"Shai-Hulud" is a quick cataclysm of frantic sounds, disarrayed and perhaps a little consciously arty. "If My Heart" reintroduces Linkous's translucent vocals in a tremulous and delicate song more immediately familiar in temperment to Sparklehorse fans (not unlike "Homecoming Queen"), and "NC Bongo Buddy" introduces some softly industrial sounding electronics into a moody atmosphere piece that untangles itself slowly from phasing drones into a distorted bed of distant, heavily-treated electric guitar.

Both Mark Linkous and Christian Fennesz take a turn at solo guitar pieces, with just the barest of electron damage floating beneath the clear acoustic tones.

The whole affair is a bit like observing the end of a summer's day from the vantage point of a cloud, slowly drifting apart in the deepening light. An expressionistic and sweetly daring tone experiment that may resonate with fans of Fennesz moreso than with the indie singer/songwriter set, "In The Fishtank" sees Linkous striving to evoke both somber and life-affirming moods with a less-familiar, mostly instrumental and highly minimal vocabulary.

Since Mark Linkous' death, I have slowly been trying to get some of the more obscure releases of his. I'm certainly glad I got this. From listening to it, it seems that four of the pieces are more slanted towards the Sparklehorse sound and three of them sound more like Fennesz, though I'm sure they each added things to the other's work as well. If you like the Sparklehorse instrumentals from the "regular" albums, especially those from "Good Morning Spider" and "It's A Wonderful Life", you are almost certain to like this. It's more music that appears to have come out from the depths of the Smokey Mountains, all swampy and misty. It's a wondrous world to step into. Two of them, "Goodnight Sweetheart" and "If My Heart" feature Mark's vocals, but they are heavily treated, like those on "It's A Wonderful Life"'s "Devil's New", so they still obtain the feel of an instrumental. The biggest surprise is, to me, "Mark's Guitar Piece", with it's use of "simple" acoustic guitar and some glockenspiel, it is lovely and tugs at the heart strings.

Fennesz also has a very short acoustic guitar piece. His other two works here sound like, well, Fennesz. Very fractured and moody; they go well with the rest of the album.