In Christian Fennesz' Black Sea everything is sensitive to what it is not: meandering guitar - occasionally cresting in syncretic peaks � swim through overdriven, pulsing collages, merge into thickly complex, laminar drones, which themselves are then beleaguered like a wreck on the shore by waves of rough textures or haunted by distant melodies that, finally, ascend to an eldritch ambience. A wealth of territory is covered, yet everything is drawn together and mutually implied in this unique drama.

More so than ever before, Fennesz demonstrates an intimacy in the undemonstrative, non-cliched beauty of his compositional touch, in his gentle but firm caress of the ear. The sputtering of circumstantial detail opens the work. It soon rises to a jagged intensity before being windswept by gentle and evanescent textures that open up the sound field, allowing a plaintive guitar passage to pass through undeterred. After this, the piece starts to shimmer from phasing, suggesting a dizzy ecstasy is just out of reach, and at that moment the piece fades out. Not long after, the album lifts itself to a new level - in "" the proceedings become crystalline, combustible, hard as Carborundum and yet as gentle as an ocean's mist.

Fennesz takes his time and, unlike in certain past efforts, everything ultimately gets a thorough workout without lapsing into excess or redundancy. Tiny fluctuations in pitch and hazy harmonics will draw one into a dim rainbow cloud on "Perfume For Winter", for instance, and the plaintively strummed acoustic guitar melody of "Grey Scale" will stand out for its supple, tremulous, and welcoming nature, but it won't be long before either turns its back and heads down a dark corridor leading one knows not where. In the gradual, unforced shifts in direction that the music takes, the album is like a great river wending its way to the sea.