Geir Jenssen - Cho Oyu 8201m

Chris Watson writes:

"'Cho Oyu 8201m' is a wonderfully rich and well documented sonic adventure. A unique narrative full of deep rhythms and exciting textures. Beautiful design."

Straight No Chaser (UK):

Exclaim (USA):

Popmatters (USA):

Geir Jenssen, who also goes under the name of Biosphere, lives in a town in northern Norway and assembles soundscapes. The noises he uses in this one come from a trip he made up Cho Oyu, a mountain on the border between Nepal and Tibet. The amount of wind and bell on the album hint at the ease with which he could have been overwhelmed by the hugeness of the landscape and peace-and-Buddhism stereotypes of Tibetan life, but he chooses his samples sparingly and shows a holistic and precise appreciation of place, giving time to small, specific sounds, such as the tip-tap of birds pecking at biscuits on a rock, and the incidental grunts of passing yak herders. He’s helped by Jon Wozencroft, who tucks the CD into a stiff card envelope along with a map and tour diary. This is packaging with a sense of occasion. Every once in a while Jenssen overworks an effect, but in its totality Cho Oyu 8201m is an absorbing release: an arthouse documentary without the scenery.

Uncut (UK):

Mojo (UK):

All Music (USA):

Geir Jenssen is better known as Biosphere, the Norwegian electronic/ambient composer responsible for a half deck of albums on the Touch label between 1996 and 2006. He also recorded the soundtrack for the film version of Insomnia. Fewer still know that Jenssen is an experienced mountaineer. He traveled to Tibet in September and October of 2001 and climbed Cho Oyu, a mountain on the Tibetan/Nepalese border; it's the sixth largest peak in the world and is 8,201 meters high, hence the title. Jenssen made field recordings of all stages of his trip. It was rigorous: it took two weeks to get from Katmandu to the Base Camp in Tibet. The journey was taken slowly so as to avoid altitude sickness. Given that Tibet is literally the top of the world, making these recordings took some doing, whether it was the supply trucks blasting along mountain roads in the snow, transistor radios playing in high altitude, or birds that Jenssen fed to try to lure them closer. The voice of the sherpa, or his exhibition mates climbing, yak bells, livestock, horses galloping, the wind itself as wicked hail hit the tents in the middle of the night. It's all charted here. But these are not purely field recordings. There are subtle edits made, and even subtler effects added, and some listeners will recognize a bit of what's here as the rough source material for pieces on the Biosphere album Dropsonde, with sequencing done by the day, but perhaps not the exact hour. It's no matter, this is sound collage made from the rawest possible sources and then assembled, and it is a haunting, at times slightly harrowing experience. The listener is taken deep inside the climbing experience and how disorienting it is for a Westerner to exist in such a wild environment. One has to depend on the kindness of spirits, gods or one's own particular yiddam or protector deity. The overall feeling is that one is on holy ground, listening for the voice of the beyond, even among somewhat familiar sources - though few are. This recording will not appeal to everyone, to be sure, so Ash International should be commended for releasing such an arresting work. For those who encounter it with an open mind, it is the stuff of the fantastic, the void itself speaking through this man and his gear. It's remarkable, hushed, sacred, without being religious. It's the sound of the world coming to the listener in bits and pieces, whispers and roars. Cho Oyu 8201m is magical. [Thom Jurek]

Record Collector (UK):

Grooves Magazine (USA):

Finding Geir Jenssen 8,000 meters above sea level, making field recordings up the Tibetan Mountain of Cho Oyu, is hardly surprising, given his pseudonym Biosphere, his favored publicity shot on mountain in climbing gear, and the endless references to Arctic vastness and icy landscapes found in most reviews of his work. Nor is the substance of Cho Oyu 8201m a radical departure: loops of far-off percussion meshing with lightly processed gusts of wind and circling birds. Introducing a narrative element to Cho Oyu—allowing us to aurally follow Jenssen’s climb to the summit—is a welcome development, something only hinted at on previous releases.

Things begin at “Zhangmou,” a frontier town near the Nepalese/Tibetan border represented by an earthy drum loop, scrambling dogs, and the muffled clamor of anxious climbers—you can almost smell the incense. Further up, the campsite of “Palong” mixes bells, whistles, and the crackle of fire with a bass line seemingly taken from the squeals of a pig. “Chinese Basecamp” is more like the Biosphere of old, with cycles of grainy, synthetic tones rubbed up against shifting gusts of wind. Like the air, sound grows thinner the higher we climb: ghostly radio broadcasts puncturing the silence, with the sound of a passing plane in “Camp 1,” Norway’s national anthem on “Camp 1.5,” and traditional music of South Central Asia on “Camp 2.” The final “Summit” thoughtfully offers nothing but the sounds of a light breeze.

The combination of field recording and subtle electronics on Cho Oyu results in a kind of woozy loneliness, ably conveying both the vastness of such high places and the physical discomfort involved in making such journeys. Jenssen’s extensive liner notes detailing the expedition and Ash’s usual attention to packaging complete this rewarding release. [Joshua Meggitt]

Boomkat (UK):

Better known to the ambient-loving masses as Biosphere, Geir Jenssen is one of the most influential artists in his field. Responsible for the milestone album ‘Substrata’ among many others, Jenssen defined a sound and a time of ambient music and his compositions served as a precursor to the Deaf Centers and Tim Heckers of the world. This disc however sees the musician moving away from his delicate electro-acoustic compositions and into the realm of field recording, or more specifically diary recordings of an adventure in Tibet. The enclosed booklet describes the journey; Jenssen ventured up Cho Oyu, the worlds sixth highest peak at 8201 metres, with a group of fellow travellers and documented it beautifully with his writing, but the real adventure is hidden on the disc itself. Across twelve tracks Jenssen does his best to sum up the sights and sounds he was experiencing as he trekked through towns, villages and frozen landscapes. It might be a stray radio broadcast, a street musician, wind chimes and traffic in the distance or a cassette tape bought from a nearby shop – but what Jenssen manages on the record is simply heart-stopping. With only the simplest of means he has created an album which totally distils the current explosion in atmospheric, cinematic listening music – he has documented an actual adventure, a journey which could easily have been filmed with sound, letting the recordings tell the story. Of course what he ends up with transcends the term ‘cinematic’ – you know this is real, as you hear a dog barking or a voice shout in the background you are perfectly aware that Jenssen was sitting there recording these people and that is enough to make listening to the album a totally absorbing experience. An incredible package in typically lavish packaging, and a welcome addition to Geir Jenssen's already impresive catalogue. Highly Recommended.

Dagsavisen (Norway):

Mange går langt for kunsten, men Geir «Biosphere» Jenssen må ha satt en slags rekord: I 2001 klatret han til toppen av Cho Oyu i Himalaya, 8.201 meter over havet, og lydopptakene han gjorde på veien har han nå gitt ut på cd.

Her får vi dermed høre en del av kildematerialet for det briljante «Dropsonde»-albumet, som Jenssen ga ut tidligere i år under sitt faste artistnavn Biosphere, og som ble belønnet med karakter 6 av 6 her i Dagsavisen.

Da annonserte Jenssen i kjent provokativ stil at han ville trekke seg tilbake fra elektronisk musikk og heretter konsentrere seg om ren lyd, og denne plata kan tolkes som en bekreftelse på Geir Jenssens intensjoner. Som plateutgivelse stiller «Cho Oyu» en del sentrale spørsmål rundt våre oppfatninger av hva som er musikk. Samtidig, og pussig nok, låter dette ikke så forskjellig fra mye av det Geir Jenssen har laget som Biosphere de siste årene, på sin vei bort fra digitale rytmer, mot akustisk stillhet.

Dagens elektronika handler i stor grad om prosessering av lyd, og flere av sporene her er ikke bare rene «field recordings», men Jenssens bearbeiding av musikk han har snappet opp på veien. For eksempel «Jobo Rabzang», som er basert på looper fra en kassett med tibetansk musikk, og som i all sin skjøre enkelhet er blant det vakreste Geir Jenssen har laget.

Den forseggjorte cd-innpakingen inneholder utdrag av Jenssens dagbok fra den 45 dager lange ekspedisjonen. De tolv sporene på cd-en følger veien mot toppen, høyere og høyere. Det ligger dermed en spenning i plata, ikke ulikt magien fra guttedagenes hørespill på radio, med en vesentlig forskjell i vissheten om at lydene man hører er autentiske. Her er det ingen som knitrer med potetmelposer.

Cho Oyu er verdens sjette høyeste topp, og turen opp er hard og farlig. På veien opp møter de en ekspedisjon på vei ned bærende på en død klatrer. På femte dag av ekspedisjonen hører Jenssen på kortbølgeradioen at to fly har krasjet inn i World Trade Center. Det er den 11. september 2001, og verden skal aldri mer bli den samme, men Jenssen klatrer videre, til han når toppen sammen med sin sherpa Krishna, som den eneste fra sin ekspedisjon som kom helt fram. Plata avsluttes med lyden av vinden og stillheten på toppen av Cho Oyu, tidlig om morgenen, med utsikt mot Mount Everest.

Spørsmålet om dette er musikk, kunst eller bare lyd blir mindre viktig: Dette er fascinerende lytting. «Jeg tror ikke jeg vil gjøre en lignende reise igjen», konkluderer Jenssen i cd-heftet. Og dette er en plate man neppe vil få høre maken til. [Bernt Erik Pedersen]

Mapsadaisacal (UK):

“I would climb the highest mountain, I would run through the field, only to be with yooooooou” U2

“Ain’t no mountain high enough, ain’t no valley low enough, ain’t no river wide enough to keep me from yoooooooou” Diana Ross

“Unwanted side effects while taking [high altitude medicine] Diamox include drowsiness, fatigue, or a dizzy lightheaded feeling…in some cases, individuals may suffer depression, pains in the area of the kidneys, and bloody or black tarry stooooooooooools” Geir Jenssen

Those words are printed on the cover of Geir Jenssen’s singular contribution to the field of music about mountains. After the success of his Substrata album, he took all his royalties and blew them on a trip to Tibet in 2001 to climb the world’s sixth highest peak, Cho Oyu. Not one to miss an opportunity, he armed himself with a minidisc recorder, microphone and shortwave radio. Along with, I would assume, a load of mountaineering stuff like crampons and ropes, and whatever else they use. I don’t know. Hooks. Warm clothes. Sherpas. Anti-gravity devices. And Diamox.

Five years later, he has finally opted to release the results – under his own name, to distinguish these “field recordings” from the digital explorations he has released as Biosphere. Not that there is a lack of thematic continuity however – these pieces are in a sense an expedition to the very core of his work, both in terms of his use of such recordings to form the basis of a track (much of Dropsonde is based on these source materials), and in terms of the isolationist mood that hermetically seals you inside his albums. With Cho Oyo, all else is stripped away, leaving you naked, shivering and very alone.

The diary that accompanies the disc is gripping, nerveless and at times surreal stuff, as Geir recounts the frosty group dynamics, intense physical trauma (headaches, sickness, dizziness, freezing cold; no tarry stools as Geir elected to forego the Diamox), and occasional misguided attempts to tune back in to the rest of the world - hearing reports of planes crashing into the World Trade Centre, a War of the Worlds style hoax was assumed.

The recordings bring the words and pictures to life so vividly, tracking as they do the trip from the Tibetan border through basecamp, advanced basecamp, camps at 6400m, 6800m, 7100m, and 7500m before reaching the summit itself. The compelling organic rhythms of civilisation Geir finds in Zhangmu and Tingri - local instrumentation, a cassette of traditional Tibetan music - are quickly left behind on the drive to the first camp, replaced with an eerie stillness in which the smallest of sounds become massively portentuous, at times coalescing into tiny patterns (the yak bells distort in a manner akin to the powerful ringing tones of the guitar on John Fahey’s Red Cross). A sense of loneliness and disorientation increases as Geir ascends through the rarified atmosphere, sometimes the only sounds are of laboured breathing and a biting wind scouring the surface; this complete disconnection is broken only by the music and plane chatter picked up on the radio. At times you feel like you are the one who should be taking the altitude sickness tablets.

Geir’s reasons for punishing himself thus are conspicuously absent from his diary. However in doing so, he has scaled more than one peak – to the besting of the world’s sixth highest mountain can be added the fashioning of possibly his finest artistic statement. Buy it, and buy a big coat too - you are going to need it.

Read Geir’s diary and see some amazing photos of the expedition here

Bad Alchemy (Germany):

Cho Oyu 8201m (Ash 7.1) ist so ein Stück Natur, der sechshöchste Ausbuchtung der Erde nach oben. GEIR JENSSEN, ansonsten bekannt als Biosphere, war dort. Der Beginn seines Abenteuers in Tibet am 10./11.9.2001 fiel zusammen mit der Nachricht vom Einsturz der Twin Towers, eine Erschütterung jenseits des Horizontes, die die nepalesische Grenze nur als Kurzwelle erreichte. Jenssen, der gerade Heinrich Harrers 7 Jahre in Tibet fertig gelesen hatte, fühlte sich wie von Orson Welles War of the Worlds gestreift. Er selbst führte Tagebuch, das als ’Only Krishna and I' der CD beiliegt. Auch akustisch notierte er die Etappen seiner Reise auf das Dach der Welt mit einen MiniDisc-Recorder. Die Stationen führten von ’Zhangmu' über ’Tingri und ’Jobo Rabzang' zum chinesischen Basiscamp (4830m). Weiter dann über ’Palung' (5400m), wo eine Yak-Karawane vorüber zog, und ’Nangpa La', wo er Krähen und Tauben mit Biskuit anlockte, um sie aufzunehmen, zum ’Cho Oyu Basecamp' (5700m) und weiter zu ’Camp 1' (6400m), wo er Funkverkehr registrierte von einem Nachtflug über den Himalaya. In ’Camp 1.5' (6800m) erreichte ihn über Kurzwelle ’Blå ne etterr Blå ne' aus der Heimat, auf ’Camp 2' (7100m) Weltmusik aus dem südlicheren Asien. Auf ’Camp 3' (7500m), von einem Hagelsturm in die Zelte verbannte, belauschte Jenssen ein zweites Team, das seine Sauerstoffmasken benutzte. Am 34. Tag, dem 10. Oktober, gelang ihm und dem Sherpa Krishna der Aufstieg auf den Gipfel, ein dritter Kamerad musste wegen Erfrierungen umkehren. Jenssen übersteht auch den Abstieg, auf dem die meisten Unfälle passieren, fast zu erschöpft, um sein Gepäck zu schnüren und sich zu Camp 2 zu schleppen. Er macht, ohne selbst zu prahlen, begreiflich, dass kein Spaziergang zum Cho Oyu führt. Erfrierungen, Ödeme, Sauerstoffmangel, Schlafprobleme, Auszehrung, Erschöpfung sind ständige Gefahren, die nur durch aufwändige Logistik vermieden oder bewältigt werden können. Jenssen selbst, glücklich zu den Cappucinos und Pastas in Katmandu zurückgekehrt, hat zumindest vorerst genug von so extremen Abenteuern. Der Soundtrack vermittelt uns Stubenhockern zwölf Klangbilder des Trips, aufgenommen mit den Ohren eines Musikers. Mit jedem Höhenmeter bleibt ein Stück Exotik zurück, die Klänge werden spezifischer und seltener. Man taucht in eine Zone ein, die nur noch aus zu dünner, zu eisiger Luft und aus Funk- und Radiowellen besteht. Einst steckte der Renaissancemensch den Kopf durch die Käseglocke seiner kleinen Welt, um ’draußen' die große zu entdecken. Jenssen ist einer der wenigen, die zu Fuß die nächste Membrane durchstoßen haben. Um heimzukehren nach Tromsdalen mit der Erkenntnis, das die Biosphäre an ihrer Peripherie den Menschen nicht braucht.

de:bug (Germany):

Other Music (USA):

I've often thought that mountain climbers must be amongst the most masochistic and selfish assholes on earth. Did you read that Into Thin Air book that was made into an IMAX movie about a disastrous Mt. Everest ascent in which a number of climbers died due to greed, glory hounding, and the inherent stupidity of attempting to stand on the highest spot in the entire world? What was wrong with those people and why did their families let them go in the first place? That cautionary tale hasn't seemed to stop anybody though, folks keep shelling out money year after year to climb the thing and they keep dying just the same. I guess that if it's that important to you though, then go on ahead. Now I don't know for sure if he's a masochist or an a**hole, but Geir Jenssen is a mountain climber, and in 2001 he completed an ascension of Cho Oyu in Tibet; at 8,201 meters tall, it's the world's sixth largest peak. Armed with a mini-disc recorder instead of an IMAX camera, he managed to create a highly intimate, personal, and listenable aural portrait of his trip. As much as I love, say, Chris Watson or Steven Feld, I often find these field recording albums to be more interesting in theory than in practice, but I was really surprised at how musical this CD ended up being and that it truly bore repeated listening. Perhaps it shouldn't be that surprising actually, as Jenssen is better known as the mastermind behind Norway's Biosphere, a popular and much lauded ambient act who have always been quite engaging. The twelve tracks are subtitled with descriptors that should give you some sense of what to expect; Crossing a Landslide Area, A Yak Caravan Is Coming, Birds Feeding on Biscuits, Himalayan Nightfall, etc. You also get some lovely impressions of what life as a Sherpa must be like day in and day out. Included is a ten page pamphlet with photographs from his trip, as well as entries from his travel diary that are occasionally rather harrowing, and which further confirm my mountain climber = insane masochist hunch. [MK]

SOMA (USA):

As Biosphere, Norwegian Geir Jenssen has created some astonishing 4th World recordings. Most often released on the Jon Wozencroft-curated Touch label - responsible for landmark releases by the likes of Ryoji Ikeda, Fennesz, Philip Jeck, and Johann Johannsson to name a few - he has a deft hand combining field recordings (typically recordings of natural outdoor sounds) with slow-moving, minimal electronics. Here, Jenssen has documented his climb up Cho Oyu (the sixth highest mountain on Earth) in Tibet to stunning affect. Far from the mishaps of poorly executed "World" fusions, Jenssen mixes real sounds as he experienced them - one can detect a Yak crossing filled with bells at one point, Tibetan conversation, and radio snippets elsewhere - with his hovering Calder-esque electronics and a beautiful booklet with photos and daily writing entries. As such, he has created a tactile, enveloping journal that bristles with life and mirrors the reflective, receptive atmosphere of his journey. Brilliant stuff then. [Alexis Georgopoulos]

VITAL (The Netherlands):

On Ash International we find a CD by Geir Jenssen, mostly known as Biosphere (and as such with releases on Touch), but since we are dealing here with a strict project of field recordings, it is released under his own name. In September and October 2001 he undertook a trip into Tibet, climbing the Cho Oyu, the sixth highest mountain of the world. Whereas others would probably take a camera, Jenssen is more the kind of guy to take a minidisc and a microphone to make a sonic diary. He also took a world band receiver so that he could listen to the news (and thus heard about 9/11 high in the mountains). Mentioning the shortwave is important, since unlike Watson/Nilsen, Jenssen records some sounds of that in the environment he is, and they ended up on the CD. That marks already one big difference between this and the previous CD. Some of the tracks use these shortwave sounds in addition to the field recordings. Another difference is the fact that Jenssen's twelve tracks are more pure recordings of events and situations, and the previous is a musical collage of various recordings at the same time. Throughout these pieces are minimal, but are clearly defined. Each is a snapshot of a particular part of the journey. Although Vital Weekly didn't review 'Dropsonde', it's easy to see why some of this was used as source material on that particular Biosphere CD. In terms of music, this is unmistakably the more musical one of the two that deal with field recordings. The release comes with an extensive booklet, also a diary, but then of words, of which the last entry reads: "I'm not sure I'd ever undertake a similar journey. Once was enough." [FdeW]

kultureflash (UK):

According to Jon Wozencroft, founder of Touch, Geir Jenssen (aka Norwegian ambient artist Biosphere) spent all the money that he got from the considerable sales of his Substrata album to fund an expedition to Tibet, specifically to climb Cho Oyu - the world's sixth highest peak. Documenting this expedition in the form of a written diary and minidisc field recordings has resulted in what is possibly his best work yet. And yes, the expected sounds of wind chill are there - a sonic reminder of the extreme nature of the environment, but also the idea of man's insignificance in such vast and isolated surroundings. The constant need to communicate is represented by the sound of local people, 2-way radio chatter or tuning into the comforting but otherworldly ether of shortwave radio. Cyclic rhythms drift in and out of the recordings and whilst they're subtle, they help retain a sense of narrative... of being in motion. Lavishly packaged and almost presented like a guidebook, the inclusion of a map suggests that you could re-create the journey yourself. The ultimate statement in audiotourism.

Terz (Germany):

Wie dieser Kletterkaiser z.B.: als Biosphere hat der Norweger schon mal gerne kalbende Eisberge gesampelt, 2001 wagte er sich dann selbst in den Himalaya und lässt euch jetzt mittels fantastisch arrangierten field recordings an seiner Besteigung des Cho Oyu in Tibet, dem sechsthöchsten Berg der Welt, teilnehmen. Hier ist ein Ambientalbum des Jahres. Ambient? - 30 Grad, bösartige Winde, der vollständige Verzicht auf Sauerstoff bis zum Gipfel und großes Wetterglück - dieses Audio ist kein Spaziergang, aber uns Sesselpupern kommt es angesichts dieser oft faszinierend ruhig wirkenden Scapes so vor. Ein außergewöhnlich schönes und aufwändiges Artwork begleitet dieses einmalige Hörerlebn.

Kindamusik (Germany):

Ook benieuwd waar Biosphere zijn inspiratie vandaan haalt bij het maken van zijn ijzige, ruimtelijke ambient? Zoek niet verder: dit album vol licht gemanipuleerde veldopnames uit Tibet is het antwoord. Geir Jenssen - hij is meneer Biosphere - is behalve muzikant ook fotograaf en begenadigd bergbeklimmer. In 2001 heeft hij zonder zuurstof de Cho Oyu beklommen in Tibet, met een hoogte van 8201 meter de op vijf na hoogste berg van de wereld. Jenssen zou Jenssen niet zijn als hij geen recorder mee had genomen om veldopnames te maken tijdens die expeditie. Normaal gesproken zorgt zulks dan voor het benodigde bronmateriaal voor een Biosphere album. Zo ook hier: op het vroeg in 2006 verschenen Dropsonde is regelmatig gebruik gemaakt van deze opnames.

Wat is echter het geval? De veldopnames waren zo welsprekend en wonderschoon dat ze met wat lichte aanpassingen hier en daar zo uitgebracht konden worden. Het eindresultaat is - hoe kan het anders - een stuk minimaler dan een normaal Biosphere album, en benadert soms de essentie van eenzaamheid en pure stilte. Prachtige drones, sfeerklanken van spelende kinderen vermengd met zacht galmende Tibetaanse klankschalen, windgeluiden, op de top opgevangen korte golf radio-uitzendingen uit Noorwegen, een gesamplede en bewerkte tape met Tibetaanse volksmuziek; het staat er allemaal op en het is zonder uitzondering allemaal even prachtig.

Verwacht dus geen ritmische benadering zoals dat bij Biosphere vaak voorkomt. Dit is minimaler, abstracter en ontoegankelijker, en wellicht voor sommigen ook minder muzikaal, aangezien het ergens op de grens tussen geluid en muziek ligt.

Om het nog mooier te maken zit het geheel in een mooie hoes en krijg je er een boekje bij met het reisverslag van Geir Jenssen zelf, compleet met eigen, machtig mooie foto's. Het blijkt een echte meerwaarde, want zo gaan de opnames echt leven en krijgen ze veel meer betekenis. Zo is Cho Oyu 8201m: Field Recordings From Tibet een indrukwekkend document geworden; een soundtrack bij het reisverslag van een barre tocht in woord en beeld van Geir Jenssen.

Goon (Germany):

Wem der Name Geir Jensson unbekannt erscheint, der wird eventuell bei dem Pseudonym Biosphere hellhörig. Seit Anfang der 1990iger Jahre hat der norwegische Komponist zehn Alben produziert und in etlichen anderen Projekten mitgewirkt. Das erste, was an seinem neuen Album auffällt, ist die wirklich schöne und aufwendig gestaltete Verpackung. (Leider ist sie so groß, dass sie kaum Platz in meinem CD Regal findet.) Anbei ist ein kleines Tagebuch, welches die Reise von Geir Jensson beschreibt, wie er im September/Oktober 2001 an einer Bergexpedition an der tibetanisch-nepalesischen Grenze teilnahm und dort den sechsthöchsten Berg der Welt, den Cho Oyu (8201m) bestieg. Diese Aufnahmen bestehen zum größten Teil aus Field Recordings und sind quasi der Soundtrack zur Reise. Sie geben einen kleinen Einblick, in welcher akustischen Vielfalt sich Land und Leute bewegen. Wer ältere Produktionen von Biosphere kennt und die vielschichtigen, weichen, minimale Klanglandschaften mit tiefen Bässen erwartet, wird daher vielleicht enttäuscht werden. Im Vordergrund stehen die reinen Aufnahmen eines Mp3-Players, die, aufgeteilt auf zwölf Schienen, die verschiedenen Standorte der Expedition markieren. Du schließt die Augen, und bist in Nepal: der Wind bläst dir um die Ohren, der Straßenverkehr dort umgibt dich, Windglockenspiele und Menschen in Unterhaltungen, Krähen bei ihrem Spiel, in einiger Entfernung eine Radiostation. Es zeigt die Vielfalt der Natur, einer Kultur und des Menschen; nicht mehr doch auch nicht weniger. [Matthias Lux]

Radio France (France):

Cet enregistrement a été réalisé par Geir Jenssen, musicien norvégien plus connu des amateurs de musique électronique sous le nom de Biosphere. Geir Jenssen a toujours attaché beaucoup d'importance à l'élément géographique en tant que matière sonore à l'inclure dans ses compositions musicales. C'est au Tibet, sur le toit du monde à plus de 8 mille mètres d'altitude - et sans oxygène - que cet artiste et alpiniste chevronné est allé chercher les éléments sonores de son nouvel opus discographique. Quarante cinq jours de marche et d'ascension extrême pour recueillir quelques chants traditionnels tibétains, des sons de troupeaux, le dernier engin motorisé avant de rejoindre l'ambiance sonore désertique mais jamais silencieuse de ce sixième sommet le plus haut du monde. En voici un extrait tout à fait magique, enregistré la nuit à plus de 7.000 m d'altitude pendant qu'une lointaine station radio diffuse sur les ondes courtes une musique traditionnelle répétitive involontairement accompagnée par le bruit du vent sur les parois. Ce nouvel album de Geir Jenssen est superbement présenté sur le label Ash International. [Eric Serva]

Blow Up (Italy):

Svenska Dagbladet (Sweden):

Ett soundtrack till norrmannen Geir Jensens (mer känd som Biosphere) bestigning av det tibetanska berget Cho Oyu (den sjätte högsta toppen i världen) i Himalaya 2001. Fältinspelningar och dagbokstexten i det fina omslaget ger kittlande utsnitt ur hans resa med hjälp av atmosfäriska ljud av röster, natur och tibetansk musik. En rik upplevelse med förväntningar, stillhet och intryck, inte minst för oss som aldrig kommer att nå dessa höjder. [Magnus Olsson]

Octopus (France):

Dans les colonnes d'Octopus, nous louons souvent les qualités d'aventurier sonore de nombre d'artistes que nous défendons. Pourtant, peu parmi eux dépasse le cadre formel de l'aventure virtuelle, domestique ou simplement « ethnographique » pour défier, dans les limites de leur champ artistique, leurs propres limites humaines. A l'écoute de ce Cho Oyu 8201 m, la perception du travail de Geir Jenssen, plus connu sous le nom de Biosphere, s'élargit. Derrière le musicien, on devine le baroudeur. Derrière les sons qui se meuvent, on perçoit le risque qui grandit. Le goût de Geir Jenssen pour l'isolationnisme boréal, pour les ambiances arctiques profondes et feutrées est bien connu. Mais sur Cho Oyu 8201 m, le natif de Tromso délaisse son grand nord séminal pour se transporter dans une autre terre sacrée des paysages montagneux et glacées, l'Himalaya, et se fondre dans une expédition dont l'objectif est d'atteindre rien moins que le sixième sommet de la planète, quelque part entre le Népal et le Tibet. Dropsonde, son précédent album, paru sur Touch, exploitait déjà du matériel audio tiré de ce voyage d'altitude. Mais Cho Oyu 8201 m se pose davantage sous la forme d'un carnet de route, d'une cartographie sonore mettant en relief les détails saillants de ce qui est avant tout une formidable aventure humaine. Armé de son minidisc et son micro Sony, Geir Jenssen observe et avance au sein de ce trek de six alpinistes et d'un sherpa avec son application rigoureuse. Un sens du détail qui lui fait mettre en valeur des scènes incongrues comme ces oiseaux dévalisant des paquets de biscuits ("Bird feeding on biscuits"). Mais surtout, au fil de ce périlleux trajet, l'importance du rapport à l'humain semble croître, persistant comme un défi à la distance à travers cette haute immensité. Les bribes de musiques captées à l'aide de son poste radio onde courte, les semblants de conversation permises par le téléphone cellulaire rythment les dernières foulées vers un sommet matérialisé par le dernier morceau du cd. Même perché au sommet du monde, l'homme reste à l'écoute de lui-même. Cela Geir Jenssen l'a bien compris. [Laurent Catala]

Milk (UK):

Best known for his ambient work as Biosphere, Norwegian musician Geir Jenssen is also an accomplished mountaineer. In 2001, he took part, with five other climbers and a Sherpa, in an expedition to climb Mount Cho Oyo, the sixth highest summit in the world. Culminating at 8201m, the mount is situated on the border between Tibet and Nepal, a stone throw away from Mount Everest. This album and its accompanying booklet document the month-long expedition and give an insight into Jenssen’s state of mind during the trip. It also gives an idea of what mountaineers attempting such a journey are faced with, from freezing cold temperatures to altitude sickness and physical and mental pain.

Armed with a MiniDisc recorder, a microphone and a shortwave radio receiver, Jenssen collected field recordings through the whole ascension and they are presented here entirely in their naked form, documenting the journey from the moment the expedition crossed the border into Tibet to reaching the first base camp, various intermediate camps and finally the summit, thirty days later.

The recordings weave an intricate and, at times, oppressive, sonic web as the expedition progresses through the first stages of the ascent, ranging from urban noises and everyday life recorded in the last towns and villages crossed to herds in transit, music captured on the shortwave radio receiver, birds feeding, someone breathing through an oxygen mask and storms. As the expedition gets nearer to the goal, the accrued effort required due to the rarefied oxygen transpires through denser soundscapes and shorter selections, as if the simple fact of recording was progressively becoming too demanding.

While the recordings are stark testaments of the gruelling conditions faced by Jenssen and his companions, the accompanying essay, entitled Only Krishna & I, provides a much more personal and touching view on the expedition as Jenssen documents the journey, from the moment he finds an advert in a mountaineering magazine to being the only one, with his Sherpa, to reach the summit, to his return to Katmandu.

The Wire (UK):

dMute: (France):

Au moyen de fields recordings attrapés sur Minidisc, Geir Jenssen (Biosphere) nous transporte au sommet du Cho Oyu, mont himalayen situé à la frontière tibéto-népalaise, auquel il s'est attaqué à l’automne 2001.

Carnet de route sonore, Cho Oyo raconte 8201 m de transport. A terre (Zhangmu, Tingri), des bribes de conversations filtrant parmi clochettes et gongs, le bruit d’un moteur ou le chant d’un torrent. Et puis, après avoir mis en boucle un court passage de musique tibétaine retenue sur cassette (Jobo Rabzang), c’est l’ascension. A 5400 mètres de hauteur, Jenssen croise quelques bergers accompagnés de leurs troupeaux (Palung). Dernière présence animale, une nuée d’oiseaux (Cho Oyn Basecamp, Nangpa La).

Moins fréquentes, les rencontres se font aussi moins concrètes : voix d’un pilote d’avion survolant les parages (Camp 1) ou faible mélodie passant à la radio (Camp 15) captés par les appareils de Jenssen. Qui enfermeront aussi la rumeur d’une tempête de grêle (Camp 3) et celle de l’ambiance régnant au sommet (Summit).

Forcément insaisissable dans son intégralité, la portée de ces field recordings n’en est pas moins fascinante. Matériau ayant servi à la confection de Dropsonde – album de Biosphere sorti en 2005 -, Cho Oyo 8201 m expose concrètement la somme de souvenirs influents, et invente une cartographie d’enregistrements rares. [Grisli]

SWR2 NOWJazz (Germany):

Geir Jenssen ist ein norwegischer Name. Der Photograph lebt in Tromso, mehrere hundert Kilometer nördlich des Polarkreises. Motive findet er dort viele: Rentiere, Polarlicht und samische Kothen sind die klischeebeladensten, aber auch karge, felsige Berge und allerlei Pflanzen und Tiere, die der Kälte und der winterlichen Dunkelheit standhalten. Als Musiker ist Geir Jenssen eher bekannt unter seinem Pseudonym “Biosphere". Schon dieser Künstlername verrät, dass sich Jenssen nicht nur mit der Kamera, sondern auch mit dem Mikrophon in die Landschaft hinaus begibt. Feldaufnahmen fließen immer wieder in seine Musik ein. In dieser NOWJazz-Sendung werden musikalische Pfade des Musikers erwandert, damit die Hörerinnen und Hörer gedanklich dem Bergsteiger Jenssen und dessen Tonspuren auf einen der höchsten Berge des Himalaya folgen können. [Nina Polaschegg]

Nordis (Germany):

Groove (Germany):

musiquemachine (UK):

Cho Oyu 8201m sees Geir Jenssen, of electronic ambient project Biosphere, collecting together, manipulation and editing sound recordings from his trip up Cho Oyu in Tibet- the sixth highest mountain in the world.

Each track follows a leg of the jouney with a few minutes of related sounds and music. Jenssen skilfully takes ethnic music, radio jingles and all manner of harmonic audio sounds as a back bone for most of the track, then adds on top all manner of environmental sound be it; wind,animals or people- in a effective and entertaining manner. Making each piece a musically sound work in it’s own right and not just purely unedited field records. So as a result this is replayable and enjoyable more than simple field recording cd. It all comes in a wonderful oversize cd wallet with a full colour 12 page booklet detailing his trip with both pictures & text . On the back of the wallet is a map of the area covered, giving the feeling that real thought has gone into the booklet and wallet, much like the sound and music.

A worthwhile mix of field recordings, ambience and interesting audio editing- that really acts as a audio dairy to Jenssen's trip and a enjoyble album to boot. Let’s hope he decides to present his future trips in a simlar manner. [Roger Batty]

Earlabs (The Netherlands):

Most people know Geir Jensen through his aka as Biosphere. Under this moniker he has released a range of cd’s in the ambient sector. In the 80’s he was part of a band called Bel Canto but he decided to work solo under the name Biosphere. The name being a reference to the Biosphere 2 Space Station Project.

Jensen lives in a secluded town called Tromsö in Norway, keeping a distance from the noisy and busy world. I think that is more and more becoming a very relative notion since the Internet pervades every part of the Earth and everyone is easily accessible. But, it’s true, physical contact with someone living there is a different matter. This does not lead to solo releases exclusively because in the past years he worked together with Higher Intelligence Agency, Deathprod. and Peter Namlook (of the famous Fax recordings).

Biosphere’s music varies but always circles around in the ambient area. Sometimes it’s more percussive than at other times when it features loops and droney harmonics. A few years ago he presented a new soundtrack to Dziga Vertov’s ’Man With A Movie Camera’ (1929) which I think was quite good. The atmosphere of the images is caught quite nicely.

Touch now releases a cd under his own name, Geir Jenssen. I guess this done in order not to confuse the audience with the Biosphere work and indeed because this work is much more personal than anything Jenssen has released so far. Cho Oyu 8201m contains, just like the subtitle says, field recordings from Tibet. The recordings have been made with a SonyMZ-R30 minidisc recorder and a Sony ECM-S959C microphone. It is quite different from the Biosphere stuff. Here, rhythm and melody are not the main characters but the recordings that are made while Jenssen climbed the Cho Oyu. Yes, we learn that Jenssen actually also is an experienced climber of high mountains.

The cd is an audiolog / narrative composition that follows the time line of his journey to the summit of the Cho Oyu. We start the audio near the Nepalese/Tibetan border and then go up with the composer in 12 audio works. The complete textual narration, which is also presented in the book that comes with the cd, can be read online (http://www.biosphere.no/cho_oyu). Actually the text greatly improves the experience of the audio. I had my first listening before reading the text and it is interesting to read the thoughts I jotted down while listening. I must say that before listening to this cd I heard BJ Nilsen/C.Watson's ‘Storm’. The latter, also is based on phonographic recordings. But whereas the Nilsen/Watson cd is more of a Turner-like depiction of a natural phenomenon, the Jenssen cd is much more narrative and almost cartoon-like. Jenssen’s compositions are layers and juxtapositions of recordings made during his trip at various stages. The scenery which he presents is like a Tin-Tin comic, with clear shapes and bright colors. In general there is little depth. The recordings are of good quality but the compositions are unable to take me along.

During my second listening session I also read the text. If you have read more climber’s stories like “Into Thin Air” by Jon Krakauer then you know already a little about the climbing tourism. Krakauer wrote a wonderful book about this. Of course Jenssen’s report is much shorter, much more factual and closer to his own experiences. This, together with the audio on the cd, enhances the experience and actually while reading and listening I had a great time. As with all Touch releases this one is beautifully designed and carries a booklet with other climbing photographs that make the experience even better.

In conclusion I think that Jenssen experiments with phonography might lead to interesting results. In any case he can come up with recordings that are not made by many. It is the first time, as far as I know, that he lets go of the musical context (in the classical sense) which also opens up new possibilities. There are however two points for consideration: first is the concept of recording and second is the concept of the composition. There are excellent examples for inspiration inside the Touch catalogue. [Jos Smolders]

Nordische Musik (Germany):

Schon die Verpackung bricht mit Format und Aufmachung konventioneller CDs, und auch die Entstehungsgeschichte hört sich ungewöhnlich an. Doch was ist schon »normal« bei Geir Jenssen alias Biosphere? Die Aufnahmen entstanden bei Jenssens Besteigung des sechsthöchsten Berges Cho You an der tibetanischen/nepalesischen Grenze. Seine 45tägige Bergtour, die den Nordnorweger an den Rand seiner physischen Grenzen brachte, kann man im umfangreichen Booklet nachlesen und auf CD nachhören.

Er nahm vor allem Umgebungsgeräusche auf - Wind, die Glocken von Yaks, Tabla-Getrommel, feilschende Markthändler, Hagelstürme und den Kurzwellenfunk eines passierenden Flugzeugs oder der Titelmelodie von Radio Norway International. Als Instrumentarium fungierten demnetsprechend nur MiniDisc Recorder, Mikrofon und Weltempfänger, wobei er sich eine nachträgliche elektronische Ver- und Bearbeitung der Klänge nicht nehmen ließ. Packend! [PEB]

Ruis (Belgium):

Geir Jenssen, ofwel Biosphere, is bij ons bekend als de man die ons reeds meermaals de perfecte nachtelijke koptelefoonambient bezorgde uit het hoge noorden. Dat hoge noorden heeft hij voor deze opnames even ingeruild voor een zware klimtocht naar de Cho Oyu, de zesde grootste berg ter wereld die uitstrekt tot Nepal. Gewapend met een minidisk, een microfoon en een kortegolfradio-ontvanger vatte hij de dertig dagen grimmige klim aan. Het album is een vrij persoonlijk en poëtisch verslag geworden met zowel gevarieerde veldopnames als een mooi uitgegeven (dag)boekje. [DD]

d-side (France):

Rumore (Itay):

Touching Extremes (net):

In 2001, Geir Jenssen (aka Biosphere) travelled to Tibet with the aim of climbing the Cho Oyu mountain - sixth highest top of the world - armed with minidisc, microphone, shortwave radio and photographic equipment. Jenssen’s trip is now documented by the diary that he wrote during the climb - which is transcribed in the CD booklet and, with additional photos, in his website biosphere.no - and by the twelve tracks of this splendid CD, one of those items that, when received in a certain frame of mind, make me feel literally inadequate and - in this particular case - full with admiration for people like Jenssen, who endure huge efforts to fulfil their quest for something that no word can define correctly. The sounds of "Cho Oyu" are radiant in their simplicity, presenting us with lots of suggestive views of the Tibetan environment while working effectively as a spirit-heightening
background. A herd of yaks is led by the shepherds with melodic whistling, eliciting a heartwarming sense of purity; shortwave interferences of an airplane's staff communicating with ground control, casually recorded at night by Jenssen while he was at 6400m, remind us how lonely we can be - wherever we are. The wind is omnipresent: one can feel the limbs freezing even while sitting on the couch. When the raw materials get treated, the magic springs out in large quantities, like in the fantastic loop of Tibetan music in "Jobo Rabzang", which is
as good as any Jon Hassell masterpiece. "Cho Oyu" is deeply significant in every aspect, uncovering our most hidden sense of non-belonging and subjecting it to the universal laws, to see if there is still a chance of avoiding everyday's useless gestures and comments. Jenssen's aural and written narrative are straight- forwardly efficient: I found myself reading the text, surrounded by these sounds and voices both at late night and very early morning, trying to adapt my imagination to a similar ordeal, something that I’m almost sure I won't be able to
experience in my life. Thanks to Geir Jenssen's profoundness, I can at least feel it a little nearer. It's not enough, though. [Massimo Ricci]

Wreck This Mess (France):

Voici peut-être l'ultime carnet de voyage… Avec des enregistrements à faire pâlir d'envie Chris Watson. On pense aussi à l'audiotourisme de Freeform au travers du Vietnam et de la Chine ou encore aux captations de Yannick Dauby dans les rues de Taipei… En effet, Geir Jenssen plus connu sous le nom de Biosphere nous donne à entendre l'environnement sonore dans lequel il s'est immergé pendant un mois et demi. Les échos d'un véritable périple puisqu'il s'agit d'une expédition au Tibet, en septembre 2001, avec ascension d'un sommet à 8201 mètres à la clef ! Avec les problèmes physiques et la logistique que cela suppose… Geir Jenssen raconte tout cela de manière concise dans le livret. On se retrouve donc en "prise direct" avec lui sur les routes du Népal, à la frontière de la Chine. On n'a même pas besoin de fermer les yeux pour imaginer le décor tant le son, les bruits sont "parlants" : les clochettes des chevaux tirant des carrioles, des éclats de voix et des bribes de conversations dans des langues qui nous sont inconnues, le mugissement des camions à la peine sur les routes escarpées, le hennissement des yacks et les sifflets des bergers, le grésillement de communications radios… Ensuite, une fois en haut, c'est le feulement du vent glacial et son souffle court, pour cause de manque d'oxygène, que Geir Jenssen a la force d'enregistrer pendant quelques minutes… [LD]

Rockerilla (Italy):

Machina (Poland):

Uncut (UK):

Ruis (Belgium):

RifRaf (France):

GoMag (Spain):

Orkus (Germany):

Trax (France):

Future Music (UK):

Trax (France):

Fear Drop (France):

Rock de Lux (Spain):

Testcard (Germany):

Dusted (USA):

The ascent to the peak of a gigantic mountain is something that few humans are able to experience; even those who manage to make a serious attempt are often turned back by the mental and physical demands that such a task entails. And while it in no way substitutes for actually undertaking such a climb, Geir Jenssen’s Cho Oyu 8210m is, in a small way, a chance for the listener to make the trip, at least in their mind, and while it can’t compete with the bone-chilling visuals of a professionally shot documentary, there’s something quite affecting about Jenssen’s field recordings, and the accompanying short diary that details the notable events of his journey to the top of the world’s sixth-highest peak.

Jenssen, a Norwegian known to ambient techno fans as Biosphere, traveled to Kathmandu on the first leg of his expedition, and began a 45-day saga that led him to the top of Cho Oyu, part of the Himalayas, on the Tibetan/Nepalese border. Traveling with a minidisk recorder and a microphone, Jenssen recorded his aural environment throughout the trip, with the addition, at times, of the sounds pulled in via his transistor radio. Cho Oyu 8210m is a document of his trip, presented in stages, from the trip between the town of Zhagmu and the border, to the different basecamps along the trek, to the literal apex of Jenssen’s trip at the titular altitude of 8,201 meters. While much of the journey took place on the cold face of the mountain and in seemingly spartan camps along the way, Jenssen was able to collect a surprisingly diverse collection of sounds, from the bells, whistles, and grunts of herders directing a yak caravan at the Paling campsite, to passing airplanes, neighboring birds, and the rather ominous wheeze of some of his fellow (and less fortunate) climbers on oxygen. Jenssen’s recording of the summit, mainly the sound of wind on a microphone (before what seems like more transistor transmission makes an entrance) is what one might expect from the entire disc, but Jenssen’s ear is able to find subtle sounds worth hearing along the trip, like an airplane far overhead, and his use of the shortwave brings fittingly fragile bits of music into the mix, bringing the recording (and Jenssen) back to earth in a sense, as such reminders of humanity were likely comforting diversions in the cold of the camps, especially as Jenssen climbed higher and human companionship grew scarce.

The short diary entries that accompany the disc and summarize Jenssen’s journey are powerful bits of first-person narrative; we, with Jenssen, watch as previously confident climbers succumb to the grueling conditions, and even the author’s ascent is no given as the altitude climbs. Those looking for a wholly straightforward set of field recordings won’t find them; instead, Jenssen’s aural documents are fraught with his fingerprints, and one is able to hear not just the sounds of the climb up the world’s sixth-highest peak, but the more human side of things, those sounds by which one might retain their sanity amidst the whirling winds and bone-numbing cold. Jenssen seems intent on finding life at each step of his trip, even if such life comes in the form of static-ridden radio waves, or a plane passing far too high to register as anything more than a dark blip on a white plain. Were Jenssen to simply present the sounds of wind, ice, and snow, Cho Oyu 8210m would have been the story of a mountain, but, instead, it’s the story of a man. [Adam Strohm]

Geiger (DK):

Fail (UK):

According to Jon Wozencroft, founder of Touch, Geir Jenssen (aka Norwegian ambient artist Biosphere) spent all the money that he got from the considerable sales of his 'Substrata' album to fund an expedition to Tibet. Specifically to climb Cho Oyu - the worlds sixth highest peak. Documenting this expedition in the form of a written diary and minidisc field recordings has resulted in what is possibly his best work yet.

And yes, the expected sounds of wind chill are there - a sonic reminder of the extreme nature of their environment. But also the idea of man's insignificance in such vast and isolated surroundings. The constant need to communicate represented by the sound of local people, 2-way radio chatter or tuning into the comforting but otherworldly ether of shortwave radio.

Cyclic rhythms drift in and out of the recordings and whilst they're subtle, they help retain a sense of narrative. Lavishly packaged and almost presented like a guidebook, the inclusion of a map suggests that you could re-create the journey yourself. The ultimate statement in audiotourism.

Ben Guiver (UK):

Beautiful mournful shimmering abstract sound painting courtesy of Christian Fennesz (electric guitar, electronics) and Ryuichi Sakamoto (piano). Recorded respectively in New York and Venice between 2004 and 2006, Fennesz and Sakamoto worked in geographic isolation from each other until meeting up for the final mixdown in NYC in February 2006.

My first thoughts were that it might have been better for the two collaborators to have worked together in the sense of being in the same room. I cannot base this on anything solid. Further thoughts were that there is a lot of space in these compositions, and that the geographic distances and the time frame might have helped the creative process, due to a delayed, fragmented kind of intimacy that could facilitate something more considered. This may be mere expiant verbiage, but it’s something about how they carefully fit together and around each other, like different elements in a visual composition, that provokes this thinking. I’m not saying that they couldn’t have managed to do this in the same room – how would I know anyway – but that I was just struck by the manner of the collaboration.

The music itself is delicate, sublime, Fennesz’s guitar ricocheting around softly, touching my mind in an abstract, soothing yet focussed way. Reminiscent of the way Robert Hampson’s sonic alchemy works, or Brian Eno and Robert Fripp on ‘Evening Star’, though with more electronic treatments: an enquiry to Christian's agent, Danilo Pellegrinelli, revealed that Christian uses guitars and a patch written in max/ msp, called "lloopp" which was designed by friend Claus Fillip: it’s quite well documented if you search for it in google.

It’s impressive how the respective aesthetic palettes combine together, complimenting each other without compromise, and it’s a real move on from his nonetheless brilliant ‘Venice’, particularly in terms of the spaciousness of the music: ‘Venice’ was closer in proximity and has a different production aesthetic. I keep thinking of abstract painting, like Victor Passmore, or Rothko. Maybe Rothko with little white lines dribbled playfully through some of his colour blocks. Talking of art, the sleeve art is handled beautifully by John Wozencroft. The cover is a landscape photograph, of an auburn sky beneath which is a winter treeline, parting slightly in the centre to reveal a small silhouette of a house: different forms combining to one image.

Groove (Sweden):

Skug (Austria):

Aufabwegen (Germany):

Biosphere "Dropsonde" reviews

failme.net (UK):

Having just had the pleasure of meeting the man himself when I was his DJ support at some industry shindig in Central London the other week. I'd decided to backtrack and revisit this, his last album for Touch. Those first few albums for R&S Records were deceptively dubbed 'ambient', but I'd found them to be anything but. More propulsive statements in isolated techno.

In short 'Dropsonde' is pretty amazing. The opening snow drift of 'Dissolving Clouds' lends an abstract, disengaged feel that's reminiscent of earlier work before the shuffling jazz drums of 'Birds Fly By Flapping Their Wings' sets the tone for the rest of the album. And despite his meteorological association with winter, I found this to be a warm, accessible, beautifully presented and inviting piece of contemporary electronic music. [Sheikh Ahmed]

Sonomu (Sweden):

Dropsonde, the latest album by the most interesting and constantly evolving ambient artist of them all, announces itself with a three-note chime, not unlike the station identification used by the NBC television network. Biosphere then builds an entire track out of it by bending, stretching, delaying and quietly embroidering in between this trio of notes. It´s that simple, and yet not at all.

In this newest work, Biosphere returns to rhythmic music, but not of the sort that characterized his early, classic, techno-influenced albums, like Microgravity and Patashnik. Instead, he borrows an idea already broached by a handful of other artists - loaning rhythm tracks from "classic jazz" - and makes it his own by encompassing it in his signature otherwordly sound.

Appropriately enough, a "dropsonde" is a device which relays organic information to a computer. And is this not what Biosphere has been doing throughout his career, somehow relaying his impressions of the world of around us electronically?

All other considerations aside, the litmus test is how good the music is to listen to, and it is just gorgeous. "Warmed by the Drift" is one of the most assured and sensual pieces Biosphere has ever committed to record. Surrounding it are ten other pieces over a generous running time of seventy minutes, each one a small masterpiece, closing with the weightless drift of the elongated "People Are Friends".

A highlight of the year in music as well as a highlight in the œvre of Biosphere. And as always, housed in a typically beautifully crafted Touch digipak. [Stephen Fruitman]

Grooves (USA):

On his eighth album, Biosphere’s Geir Jenssen has done something not many would have expected of this ambient soundscape guru: He’s reinvented his sound. Over the course of a career now spanning well over a decade, Biosphere has dependably crafted minimalist, drifting music that pulses serenely on the edges of consciousness, incorporating rhythmic loops almost subliminally into his fog-like constructions. On albums like his epic Substrata and its sublime follow-up Shenzhou, which incorporated hazy orchestral samples into the mix, this formula worked beautifully. But on his last album, Autour de la Lune, Jenssen’s longtime formula abandoned him, and his subtle music drifted across the very fine line into boredom and emptiness.

Perhaps realizing this, Biosphere has made Dropsonde a very different effort indeed. In terms of surface sounds, this new disc is not an entirely drastic departure - there’s still the same attention to melodic loops and subtly layered sounds - but Jenssen has also incorporated more traditional rhythms that shake off the sleepy stupor of Autour. On “Birds Fly by Flapping Their Wings”, this new sound is shown off early as jazzy drums and cymbal splashes drive steadily atop the more familiar ethereal shimmer. “In Triple Time” explores similar ground, but even more exuberantly, with rapid drumming and upbeat melodic loops bubbling away in the background.

Elsewhere, things are more familiar, and not every track is dominated by Jenssen’s nods to rhythm. “From a Solid to a Liquid” is a lovely, haunting piece that builds a warm, slowly percolating melody atop the crackling hiss of field recordings, and it’s very much in the spirit of Substrata. On “Fall In Fall Out”, Jenssen strikes a middle ground between old and new for the album’s most compelling track. Crackling vinyl noises and digital glitches glide across a dim bed of chopped-up melodic fragments, with drums blending in more than they do on other tracks.

Dropsonde is an interesting, if not entirely successful, new direction for Biosphere. While Jenssen never really approaches the grandeur or elegance of his best work, it’s nevertheless encouraging to see this talented artist rethinking his approach. [Ed Howard]

All Music Guide (USA):

Geir Jenssen has moved toward something new on Dropsonde -- finally on CD after having been issued on LP some months previously. The CD version contains more music, about 25 minutes more. It's the sound and arrangement of this one that grabs the listener's attention quietly and gently, but nonetheless insistently. First, the definition that provides a telltale hint of the album's sound: a "dropsonde" is a radiosonde, dropped by parachute from an aircraft, to obtain soundings of the atmosphere below. The principle applies here in spades. The opening moments of Dropsonde's second track, "Birds Fly by Flapping Their Wings," are familiar to all of Jenssen's ambient music: a gray sonic wash of random elements that could be weather, water, etc., float in from the margins. A synth plays a quiet drone underneath for a few moments. About 40 seconds in, a drum loop that could be from Tony Williams on a Miles Davis record slips in. It's constant, it never moves, but it shimmers just right for the two-chord keyboard sequence to hover above while the other sounds and keyboards subtly move in ghostly fashion through the middle and underneath. The rhythm is hypnotic, but the piece is far from static -- it just slowly draws you in. There is emotion in it; it feels good; it feels meditative but alive. The piece gradually strips away everything but the sounds the listener heard coming in. The Miles reference isn't a mistake; in a number of tracks here, Jenssen touches upon the jazz musician's colors, modes, tensions, and edgelessness. It's the Miles of the second quintet and the Miles of In a Silent Way, where mode falls away and the smaller, repetitive vamp leads the way in. Check "Triple Time," "Fall in, Fall Out" (with its shimmering, authoritative military-style loop), and "Arafura," which is perhaps the finest articulation of Jenssen's method; it's spare and beautiful yet lush, with slowly unfolding mystery. Other tracks here, such as "Daphnis 26," offer a more forbidding ambient tone before the loops kick in and send the listener to an edge that never quite materializes. "Altostratus" and the opener, "Dissolving Clouds," are far more minimal, almost random in their computer tones and tunnels. The blissed-out "Sherbrooke" is a minor masterpiece, taking the ambient form into new directions with its utilization of sonic loops that become rhythmic statements under the radar. The album closes with the whispering quietude of "People Are Friendly," with keyboards swelling gently in hushed tones as voices appear and disappear through the mix for the entire ten and a half minutes before the album itself, like the track, disappears into silence, echoing memorably but indescribably in the mind of the listener. Jenssen only records when he has something new to say; he's said it here.

Urb (USA):

XLR8R (USA):

It was inevitable that Norwegian ambient minimalist Geir Jenssen (Biosphere) would explore the microfibers of jazz. After a dozen years of pioneering quiet, cold-filtered electronic music that invoked his arctic surroundings, Jenssen now applies his techniques to ECM-style sounds (think Keith Jarrett, Ketil Bjørnstad, etc.). Unlike his jazz-noodling countrymen, Jenssen sacrifies none of his contemplative ambient climates on 'dropsonde', his fifth release for England's austere [! - ed.] Touch label. Whereas Jenssen's attempt to "bliss out" classical music samples and loops on '02's 'Shenzhou' proved lacklustre, the jazz snippets on "In Triple Time" and "Fall In, Fall Out" add tension to a recording that will leave you mesmerized for repeated listenings. [Tomas Palermo]

Almost Cool (USA):

Geir Jenssen has been creating ambient music under the name Biosphere for over fifteen years now. He's released nearly twenty albums worth of material in that time, both on his own and in collaborations with everyone from the Higher Intelligence Agency (on the great Polar Frequencies) to Deathprod. In that time, his work has plumbed such a signature sound that he's been coined as having originated the "Arctic Sound." Over the course of the past couple years (especially on his releases for the Touch label), his work has reached a very high level of maturation and development. Maturation isn't probably quite the right word for someone who has been creating music for so long, but his past several releases have burst forth with such singular, refined (yet unique) visions that although the variety of his early work like Substrata is made to sound like sketches in places. His Shenzou is an all-enveloping soup of strings and murky nocturnal pulses while his most recent effort Autour De La Lune pushed off into deep space with icy tones and much less of a focus on melody. In that same way, Dropsonde finds Jenssen moving in another singular direction for the course of an entire album, and the result is again highly refined and enjoyable.

Jan Jelinek and other artists have been dipping their toes into jazz music for some time now, but you haven't heard anyone melt the pieces of the genre down to their base elements and reconstruct them in the way that Jenssen has here. After the short opening track of "Dissolving Clouds," the album moves forth with warm resonated melodies and shuffling snares in "Birds Fly By Flapping Their Wings." "In Triple Time" again finds some jazz percussion loops shuffling while filtered and bent horns moan like whale calls in a bay.

I mentioned Jelinek above, and in places on Dropsonde, there's definitely a resemblance. "Fall In Fall Out" is all stuttering upright bass loops and hissy vinyl static while a martial snare keeps time. Most of the other times, though, the album reaches for those deep, dark places that Biosphere seems to know how to massage best. "Warmed By The Drift" calls to mind the title as layer upon layer of dense washes cover your ear like blowing snow while "Daphnis 26" chugs along with deep, rumbling beats and multiple layers of stuttering loops. As with his other excursions into different styles, Jenssen still maintains an almost signature sound on most of the tracks, and because of that very reason, you will definitely enjoy this album if you like his other work. I'll admit that I'm a sucker for this type of all-enveloping ambient music, and Jenssen seems to know just which buttons of mine to push.

rating: 7.75

LA Alternative (USA):

Back from his lonesome astral roaming on 2004’s Autour de la Lune, Norway’s Biosphere (AKA Geir Jenssen) seems still affected by that oxygen-deprived, zero gravity excursion. Although a version of it was already released on vinyl late last year, Dropsonde is now available on CD with new artwork (blurry sunspots in place of an ethereal cloud cover), six new songs and one track missing (the LP’s closing “In the Shape of a Flute”). The sine wave purism of Autour all spent, Jenssen throws in some uncharacteristically skittering breaks for the hi-speed hypnosis of “In Triple Time,” steely rhythms pulsing and recombining all over the iridescent “Arafura,” a hissy march holding the worn grooves of “Fall In, Fall Out” together and asthma-attack beats for “Daphnis 26.” But throughout Dropsonde, Jenssen remains blissed out and gone, less interested in thump and boom than texture and space; hewing to Brian Eno’s proclamation, back when the producer-performer was building an oeuvre of “ambient” long-players in the late 1970s, of an “environmental” music that is “to be experienced from the inside.” Dropsonde looks back to that analog moment of minimalist experimentation while also swimming ahead through glistening digital tides. “Sherbrooke” recalls the ecstatic fuzz and melodious glide of Loveless though played through shiny circuits instead of Marshall stacks while closer “People Are Friends” is a reminder that Jenssen was trafficking spectral tones and ghost voices long before Boards of Canada. A dizzying canvas of weightless loops, Dropsonde proves this veteran architect of twilight soundscapes remains a master of the machine-addled sublime.

Straight No Chaser (UK):

Word (UK):

Rock Sound (UK):

Future Music (UK):

Indieworkshop [USA]:

There are few musicians or composers that can hypnotize me the way that Geir Jenssen does. His subtle manipulations of patterns and soundwaves will have me staring at my speakers for hours on end. Almost instantaneously my eyes glaze over and I sink deep into my couch. The rhythmic pulses wash over me and surround my head like a warm scarf. Like the cover art, I’m aimlessly lost in a wispy sky. I’m back on the hill behind my boyhood home, looking up at the clouds while I waste my summers away. And while that all sounds over dramatic and more than a tad pretentious, if you have sat and listened to any one of Jenssen’s recordings as Biosphere those words will ring true. It’s sonic therapy; music’s answer to acupuncture and meditation.

Where his last album, Autour de la Lune, was mainly an exercise in the lower registers of the sonic realm, Dropsonde is brighter and more immediately engaging listen. Instead of feeling the steady grown and emptiness of space, Jenssen has tapped into a sound almost reminiscent of 90’s drone kings Seefeel. It’s very much more looped based, with almost every song focused around one centralized “riff” as it were. But it’s not just a slow manipulation of that one loop, he incorporates different textures and sounds (non-looped) through out, giving each track a personality and a degree of interest well above most drone based music.

The songs have that certain chilled out feel, but it’s not as desolate as Autour… I wouldn’t go as far as to say that this time around Jenssen has gone poppy, but the heavy weight of his past work has somewhat been lifted. It’s an album that begs for your attention while it floats you off into the sky. Everything just floats out of you, anger-tension-worry-energy, and you are left to bob up and down with the slow ebb and flow of his sonic waves. Trance has never been so interesting and peaceful. [Jake Haselman]

Intuitive Music (Spain):

In top 20 albums of 2005

In "Dropsonde" Biosphere is pushing new directions towards the jazz colours of Miles Davis and Jon Hassell, whilst re-invigorating the pulse and projection of his signature sound: a hypnotic combination of pleasure and dread. A perfect invitation to new paths in electronic fusion music for the 21st century.

The Big Chill (UK):

Here comes another icebreaker from Geir Jenssen’s secret Tromso headquarters.

“A 'dropsonde' is a weather reconnaissance device designed to be dropped from an airplane or similar craft at altitude to take telemetry as it falls to the ground. It typically relays information to a computer in the host plane by radio. A parachute may slow the fall. Information collected by a typical dropsonde may include wind speed, temperature, humidity, and atmospheric pressure”.

The notion of this small, compact and highly mobile unit of super quality technical kit listening to the environment, is oddly metaphorical for the Biosphere programme itself. Music that is as much about the world about us as it is about top end digital production layering. And as always, the fantastic quiddity of the work.

The six tracks on this album are currently only available in vinyl format; the CD will follow in November [now early 2006 - ed.]. The music represents a change from the impressionist washes of Shenzhou and Autour La Lune but it is unmistakeably the work of Biosphere. The territory is confirmed from the opening bars.

The widescreen aspect of the sound is firmly present but there is now a shuffling and insistent feel that has been absent of late and is much welcome on its return. The beat is back, as “Birds Fly By Flapping Their Wings” heralds an urgent drum pattern under a floating sky that is echoed in the snare drum matrix that tags down “Fall in, Fall Out”. .

“Altostratus” is another floater, suspended in its own animation and creating the three dimensional space in which the Biosphere sound collage defines itself best. The stand out cut, however, is the majestic “Sherbrooke” which is a rising, building anthemic humdinger capturing light and space and adding almost Copeland like brush strokes which ever so faintly suggest “Shaker Leaps”.

As in the other cuts these sprung rhythms underpin and add to the mix bringing an element of excitement to the tracks and making this a landmark record for the artist. This is a wonderful piece of work and one of the most organic sounding electronic albums to emerge so far this year. [Alan James]

Milk Factory (UK):

Biosphere’s Geir Jenssen has spent the last fifteen years redefining the boundaries of electronic-based ambient music. Although his early solo work as Bleep was largely club orientated, his first output as Biosphere, the 1993 album Microgravity gave the first signs of Jenssen’s future musical direction. Since, his work has taken many shapes, from records and installations, often involving landscapes, to live performances. Since his 1997 album Substrata, Jenssen’s records have increasingly become more introverted and distant, with last year’s Autour De La Lune, a project based around the Jules Verne book of the same name, being by far his most austere work.

With Dropsonde, Jenssen returns to more hospitable territories. Abandoning drone-like moods for richer soundscapes, Jenssen applies jazz-infused beat patterns and tones over sumptuous loops. The album opens in typical Biosphere territory, with a dense formation reminiscent of Substrata or Polar Sequences, but, just a minute in, a relentless bip-bop-flavoured beat kicks this comfortable setting in the balls and sends the composition spinning in a totally new dimension. While this combination originally appears rather linear, soon, scattered over a surprisingly clear melodic line, incredibly fine sonic details materialise, each one impacting on the listener’s perception by adding some relief to the landscape.

Jenssen applies similar principles to four of the five remaining tracks, yet, he finds a different way to cast his sounds and shape the mood of a piece with each new track. Dropsonde is a far cry from the impressionist touches of Shenzou or the barren backdrops of Autour De La Lune. Here, Jenssen embraces rich sonic formations, engages groove and applies lavish brushes and textures all the way through. The only composition to deviate slightly from this template is the wonderfully smooth Altostratus. Here, Jenssen revives for a moment the mood of Patashnik by sending out electronic pulses above a sombre cloud of electronic soundwaves.

It is no coincidence that this particular album is originally being released on vinyl. While Jenssen’s various efforts of the last few years suited the clinical sound of CDs, Dropsonde gains in depth and texture with additional crackles and statics, while Jenssen’s sound palette also contributes to giving this album a raw organic feel. Adding to the mood is the album length itself. Clocking at just under forty minutes, Dropsonde is Biosphere’s briefest record, yet still allows for vast sonic spaces to develop fully while remaining entirely consistent, making it Jenssen’s most accomplished record to date. [4.8/5]

The Wire (UK):

Ananana [Portugal]:

Poucos como Geir Jenssen, aka Biosphere, foram tão bem sucedidos em continuar os preceitos do ambientalismo na electrónica, colocando em circulação obras que chegaram mesmo a ultrapassar em conseguimento e pertinência as que fundaram o género, da autoria do nem sempre feliz Brian Eno. Ainda que continuando a sua dedicação ao paisagismo sonoro, é outra, no entanto, a agenda do norueguês no novo “Dropsonde”. Depois do austero e brilhante “Autour de la Lune”, a sua homenagem ao romance de Jules Verne com o mesmo título, ei-lo que volta ao domínio do “beat” que marcou os seus inícios (“Cirque” é o disco com que inevitavelmente é comparado), com a inclusão de ritmos de bateria provenientes do jazz mais “groovy”. Ao que parece, trata-se de “samples” e todas as suspeitas levam a acreditar que as fontes foram os velhos LPs da Blue Note, mas nenhuma indicação é dada a esse respeito na ficha técnica. O simples facto é suficiente para alterar de modo substancial os parâmetros em que o projecto Biosphere se tem movimentado. Se de disco para disco o ouvimos em busca da máxima depuração, a introdução de elementos percussivos leva-o agora a optar por uma maior riqueza tanto ao nível das texturas como da própria composição. Daí até uma comparação com os modalismos eléctricos de Miles Davis ou Jon Hassell vai uma grande distância, mas a alusão tem sido feita por alguma crítica. De facto, nem Hassell nem muito menos Davis cuidaram de forma tão propositada o “mood” das suas respectivas músicas – nesse aspecto, uma boa parte das preocupações da fórmula Biosphere ainda vai para a sustentação de atmosferas e estados de espírito.

Biosphere "Warmed By The Drift" - And this, friends, is probably the best track of the bunch. No beats, no rhythm, no melody to speak of, just transcendent aural beauty. It's the kind of music that constructs soothing images in the mind's eye--which for me were of a deceptively desolate desert landscape at dawn, as viewed from the perspective of a driver who's been making an all-night trek. She's been witness to the gradual brightening of the sky, watching the shadows appear and slowly start to edge across the distant bluffs on the horizon. It's been a long and lonely stretch, with nothing on the radio but preachers and country music to keep her company, but the miles have ticked down to double digits and home (and breakfast) isn't far away now. The stillness and peace of the surrounding landscape as it warms to another day is awesome, overwhelming, stunningly beautiful.

Moebius Rex blog:

Biosphere "Warmed By The Drift" - And this, friends, is probably the best track of the bunch. No beats, no rhythm, no melody to speak of, just transcendent aural beauty. It's the kind of music that constructs soothing images in the mind's eye - which for me were of a deceptively desolate desert landscape at dawn, as viewed from the perspective of a driver who's been making an all-night trek. She's been witness to the gradual brightening of the sky, watching the shadows appear and slowly start to edge across the distant bluffs on the horizon. It's been a long and lonely stretch, with nothing on the radio but preachers and country music to keep her company, but the miles have ticked down to double digits and home (and breakfast) isn't far away now. The stillness and peace of the surrounding landscape as it warms to another day is awesome, overwhelming, stunningly beautiful.

It's funny that that should pop into my head, because Biosphere is usually associated with the frosty fjords and snowbound forests of Norway, where Geir Jennsson (the man behind the music) makes his home. But my mind works from its own experience: I've not logged much time in the permafrosted parts of the world, but I did spend formative years of my life in southwestern Arizona, and, later, made several drives through Nevada and down I-5 in California. You make do with what you have. The lovely thing about Dropsonde, Biosphere's forthcoming CD release, is that it works with you to construct your own vision of peace and tranquility. Very highly recommended, especially for those of you dealing with stressful times (ah, but who isn't?).

plan b (UK):

Echoes Online (Germany):

Mit dem gut zugänglichen 94er Ambientwerk „Patashnik“ und dem darauf enthaltenen Hit „Novelty Waves“ hatte die Musik von Geir Jensen (Biosphere) zuletzt nur noch ganz wenig bis gar nichts zu tun. Entsprechend selten höre ich z. B. auch das letzte Album „Autour de la Lune“. Das soll nicht heißen, dass ich dieses Werk nicht sonderlich mag, doch irgendwie führt mich meine Stimmung nur selten an einen Platz, der sich anfühlt, wie ein Spaziergang tief unten im einsamen Ozean - einem Ort, den die Sonnenstrahlen nicht mehr erreichen. Weniger blumig formuliert, fehlt mir an den „normalen“ Tagen womöglich einfach die Ruhe, sich dieser monoton anmutenden Musik hinzugeben. Das neue und wieder auf Touch erscheinende Album „Dropsonde“ enthält zwar auch die eher experimentellen Klänge der letzten Arbeiten, leugnet aber zudem nicht die musikalischen Anfänge aus dem Biosphere-Katalog. Mit „Dropsonde“ schlägt Jensen nun eine Brücke zwischen diesen beiden Polen. Während sich auf einem Titel wie „From A Solid To A Liquid“ eine stille Atmosphäre ausbreiten darf, treiben im Jazz geerdete Percussions Stücke wie „Birds Fly By Flapping Their Wings“ und „Arafura“ voran. Warm und poppig anmutende Soundflächen ergänzen diesmal wieder die tief frequenten und druckvollen Bässe. Geir Jensen setzt seine musikalischen Ausdrucksformen wohlbedacht ein und vermengt sie zu einem abwechslungsreichen Gesamtwerk. Vielleicht wirkt „Dropsonde“ deshalb für mich sogar wie ein Best-Of-Album von Biosphere. Zum Kauf dieses Albums wird also dringend geraten. Nicht nur wegen des gewohnt tollen Cover-Artworks von Jon Wozencroft.

Benzinemag (France):

Pour ceux qui s’intéressent depuis plusieurs années aux musiques électroniques, et notamment à celles qui vont un peu plus loin que les autres en terme de personnalité et d’originalité, nul doute que le nom de Biosphere a une signification toute particulière. Depuis 1990, le norvégien Geir Jenssen, à la tête du projet, s’ingénie à créer des musiques électroniques ambient, follement envoûtantes et très évocatrices, composées la plupart du temps de boucles superposées et arrangées de telle manière à produire sur l’auditeur une sorte d’hypnose, de doux envoûtement.

Ici l’on découvre une nouvelle facette du talent de ce producteur qui nous convie une fois encore dans son immense espace sonore, dans sa (Bio)sphere musicale, de laquelle se dégagent de bien belles choses ; à commencer par ces ambiances tranquilles très réussies que l’on découvre au fil des titres.

Et sans doute depuis Cinematic Orchestra, les boucles jazz n’avaient pas tourné aussi bien qu’ici. Superposées à des nappes, à des bruits divers évoquant les trains, les voyages, l’espace, etc, ces boucles se révèlent très cuivrées (surtout sur les titres Birds Fly By Flapping Their Wings In, Triple Time et Fall In Fall Out) et donnent une chaleur étonnante à un ensemble qui reste pourtant dans l’ensemble très froid… un peu comme si une boite de jazz avait ouvert ses portes sur la banquise.

Malgré tout, aussi dépouillés soient-il, ces titres n’en restent pas moins saisissants de beauté et de force. Et derrière cette apparente austérité, ce coté clinique indéniable, se cache une richesse musicale qu’il ne faudrait tout de même pas tarder à découvrir.

A l’origine paru uniquement en vinyle, Dropsonde est réédité au format cd avec 6 titres en plus. [Richard Benoît]

ondefix.net (France):

Pour ceux qui s’intéressent depuis plusieurs années aux musiques électroniques, et notamment à celles qui vont un peu plus loin que les autres en terme de personnalité et d’originalité, nul doute que le nom de Biosphere a une signification toute particulière. Depuis 1990, le norvégien Geir Jenssen, à la tête du projet, s’ingénie à créer des musiques électroniques ambient, follement envoûtantes et très évocatrices, composées la plupart du temps de boucles superposées et arrangées de telle manière à produire sur l’auditeur une sorte d’hypnose, de doux envoûtement.

Ici l’on découvre une nouvelle facette du talent de ce producteur qui nous convie une fois encore dans son immense espace sonore, dans sa (Bio)sphere musicale, de laquelle se dégagent de bien belles choses ; à commencer par ces ambiances tranquilles très réussies que l’on découvre au fil des titres.

Et sans doute depuis Cinematic Orchestra, les boucles jazz n’avaient pas tourné aussi bien qu’ici. Superposées à des nappes, à des bruits divers évoquant les trains, les voyages, l’espace, etc, ces boucles se révèlent très cuivrées (surtout sur les titres Birds Fly By Flapping Their Wings In, Triple Time et Fall In Fall Out) et donnent une chaleur étonnante à un ensemble qui reste pourtant dans l’ensemble très froid… un peu comme si une boite de jazz avait ouvert ses portes sur la banquise.

Malgré tout, aussi dépouillés soient-il, ces titres n’en restent pas moins saisissants de beauté et de force. Et derrière cette apparente austérité, ce coté clinique indéniable, se cache une richesse musicale qu’il ne faudrait tout de même pas tarder à découvrir.

A l’origine paru uniquement en vinyle, Dropsonde est réédité au format cd avec 6 titres en plus. (9.0) [Richard Benoît]

iDJ (UK):

de:bug (Germany):

Fareastudio (USA):

Before starting his musical career, Japanese noise pioneer KK Null studied the jarring dance theatre known as Butoh. Characterized by their white-painted bodies and grotesque beauty, Butoh dancers are said to concentrate intently on an internal image and move in response to this inner vision. Audiences are not expected to know what the dancer is seeing, but to construct their own story for the dance.

Null's recent collaboration with Chris Watson (Cabaret Voltaire) and z'ev has a similar Rorschach effect. Like Toshiya Tsunoda's latest, Number One juxtaposes the natural and synthetic. But while Tsunoda practices minimalism, this trio creates thick soundscapes of crickets, thunder, elephants and manmade sounds that hum, grind and resonate. This is sound at its most visual, and every pair of ears will see something different. [Mack Hagoo]

PROFI (Germany):

Music Magazine (Japan):

Straight No Chaser (UK):

Laut (Germany):

Es gibt sie, die Alben, in deren Sound man einfach nur eintauchen möchte. Getragen von angenehmen Klängen und Effekten nahe am geräuschlichen Nichts, bieten sie einem die Möglichkeit, in ein Paralleluniversum einzusteigen, das sich vom hektischen Wumms und der Aufgeregtheit des medialen Alltags abhebt. Nichts schreit einem ins Gesicht, da ist genügend Raum, um die eigenen Gedanken im Gleichklang mit der Musik schweben zu lassen.
Nein, hier geht es nicht um drogengeschwängerte Sounds vom Mars, die erst mittels Pilz- oder LSD-Flash ihre Wirkung entfalten. Geir Jenssen aka Biospere fungiert als Geburtshelfer für Kollagen aus seinem Klanglabor, die scheinbar wie von selbst den Weg in die Welt finden. Anders sind die wunderbaren tonalen Skulpturen kaum zu erklären.

Alles beginnt mit einer simplen Tonfolge, die auch eine Durchsage auf einem Bahnsteig ankündigen könnte. Begleitet von einem merkwürdigen Hintergrundrauschen flirren viereinhalb Minuten rhythmisch unregelmäßig Töne hin und her. Bis dann mit "Dissolving Clouds" tatsächlich der Himmel aufzieht und der Blick wieder klarer wird. Hier kommt wieder der erwähnte Bahnsteig in den Sinn, denn auf einmal zieht das Tempo sanft an. Eine Geräuschkulisse wie ein fahrender Zug rattert voran, Keyboardflächen (die auch als solche erkennbar sind) greifen sich ihren Raum, und auf einmal ist er da, der Jazz. Sanft hoppelnde Hihat-Sounds und Besen-Samples sind mit das Letzte, was man von einer Biosphere-Platte erwarten konnte, nach all den Jahren, in denen Jenssen sanft dem vertonten Nichts entgegen schwebte.

Und dann das. Aber egal, da haben wir sie wieder, diese nordische Kühle, gepaart mit organischer, menschlicher Wärme. Das erzeugt eine Stimmung, gerade so, als genieße man in einer absolut lebensfeindlichen, eisigen Umgebung mit seinem besten Freund ein Gläschen Rotwein, in die wärmsten Pullis gemümmelt, die man sich nur vorstellen kann. Den stringenten Faden führt Jenssen weiter, steigert die Geschwindigkeit nochmals, flankiert von allerlei verfremdeten Sprachsamples. Die Strömung, die sein Sound hinterlässt, wärmt in der Tat so, wie es der Trackname verlauten lässt.

Im Vergleich zu den manchmal bedrückenden, tiefschwarzen Sound-Sphären der früheren Biosphere-Ära ("Microgravity", "Patashnik"), klingt "Dropsonde" an manchen stellen richtiggehend heiter. Der Frühling kann kommen, selbst wenn das Album auf Vinyl schon einige Monate auf dem Buckel hat. Die Fraktion der CD-Hörer darf sich das neueste Opus Dei aus dem Hause Jenssen ganz unbesorgt in den Player schieben und zigmal wieder von vorne hören. Es gibt genug zu entdecken.

Ikonenmagazine (Germany):

Der norwegische Musiker Geir Jenssen hat mit seinem Projekt Biosphere seit Jahren eine eigene Liga der Ambientmusik eröffnet: Immer weiter treibt er seine mitunter kühlen, düsteren, aber stets originellen Erkundungen der nördlichen Landschaft. "Dropsonde" - benannt nach Wettersonden, die in der äußeren Hemisphäre abgeworfen werden - erringt mit leichter Hand jazzige Sphären, ohne den faszinierenden Soundscape-Charakter zu verraten, der Stücke wie"Novelty Waves" zu weltweiten Hits werden ließ. Bediente sich Jenssen früher oft technoider Strukturen, vertraut er seit "Substrata" auch auf minimalistische Flächen, die sich nur langsam aus der Firnis lösen.

Anders als seine Kollegen vom erdigen Darkambient-Fach tendieren die Biosphere-Kompositionen nicht zur Erstarrung. Sie befreien sich schichtweise von ihrer Kruste, um in luftigere Höhen aufzubrechen, zu denen sie von flirrenden Miles-Davis-Beats getragen werden. Doch hinter dieser Leichtigkeit lauert erneut das Unbekannte. Erst mehrere Dimensionen müssen erschlossen werden, um die volle Tiefe dieses Werkes zu offenbaren. Stimmen wurden laut, die hier das reifste und aufregendste Album von Biosphere vermuten, und tatsächlich suchen die 11 kubistischen Klangskulpturen ihresgleichen - "Dropsonde" lullt ein, spornt an, irritiert und verstört, wie man es von einer Ambientsinfonie nur erwarten kann. Die Titel bleiben dabei assoziativ und rätselhaft: "Warmed by the Drift", "From a Solid to a Liquid", "Daphnis 26", "Sheerbroke" usw. Die stilvolle Umschlaggestaltung bietet dazu Detailaufnahmen von Blüten in verfremdeten Farben.

Wer glaubt, Ambientmusik habe mit Brian Eno bereits vor 20 Jahren ihre Möglichkeiten erschöpft, sollte sich dringend "Dropsonde" besorgen, ein eigenes Kapitel in der Geschichte des Klangkunstprojekts Biosphere wie auch der ambienten elektronischen Musik allgemein - ein Meisterwerk. [Marcus Stiglegger]

Indieworkshop (USA):

It might be a bad idea to release two different versions of the same album on two different formats (and only a few months apart) for most artists, but something tells me that fans of Biosphere won't care. Geir Jenssen, the Norwegian father of ambient techno, has the pull and the following to do just that. While the LP for Dropsonde came out late last year, it boasted a mere six tracks of his masterful sonic waves. And while it's a great LP, you can never have enough of these hypnotic loops at your disposal. So adding five more tracks, the CD version has enough drone to put you into a comfortable two week coma.

The five extra tracks go a long way to creating a totally different feel for this alternative version to the LP. But even with the new songs and longer format, it's hard for me to come up with a new angle to take on this release. Don't get me wrong, I think it's great and might even be of a more complete listen than the LP version. But I feel like I've said all that I need to say when I tackled the LP.

But maybe you missed my review earlier this year, so lets recap. Dropsonde is the aural equivalent to floating in a sensory deprivation tank. The music is so bleak and minimal that when it starts you could easily miss that it was playing at all. But slowly it seeps into you, it quietly creeps under your skin. The slightly altering loops will dig deep into your vital organs and start tugging ever so softly at your mind. It happens so subtly that you don't even realize it, but you've become completely engulfed in Jenssen's world. Your eyes will softly roll into the back of your head and astral projection won't seem like a far-fetched idea.

With almost twice the amount of tracks, and over twice the length, the CD version of Dropsonde might even be a better listening experience than the LP. Down tempo DJ's have probably bought up all the LP versions, so I'm guessing the CD version might be the only one you will be able to find these days. But if you are into chilling out and putting on something to zone out to you won't regret picking this up for one minute. [Jake Haselman]

Tinymixtapes (USA):

Though it is being touted as an effort to incorporate elements of modal jazz with the signature Biosphere "arctic sound," Dropsonde, put simply, is merely another strong release from Norway's Geir Jenssen and is very much in the same vein as previous releases, albeit with jazzier, slightly noirish overtones. Much of the album, which was recently issued on CD after having been previously released on vinyl, has a vaguely jazz-tinged flavor, but beneath its downtempo trappings, Dropsonde shows Biosphere remaining close to its ambient techno roots—perhaps even making something of a return to them after the starkness and minimalist austerity of recent Biosphere efforts.

The first half of the album alternates between beatless, Eno-esque ambience and evocative, jazzier soundscapes featuring beats that reveal their vinyl source material. Much of Dropsonde sounds influenced, to some degree, by the Radiohead b-sides of the Amnesiac era. Like the Radiohead tracks, Dropsonde shows Jenssen not so much attempting to create an album of modal jazz per se, but rather utilizing jazz elements to infuse these tracks with a moody, smoky atmosphere. Dropsonde, like previous Biosphere releases, is certainly characteristic of the artist's signature downbeat and trancelike sound, but the addition of sampled live instrumentation and gentle, brushed drum loops adds a warm, autumnal hue to these pieces. Like his peers Thomas Köner and Jan Jelinek, Jenssen makes liberal use of needle noise and vinyl static to add a pleasant warmth to the proceedings that helps to offset their frigid, wintry chill.

Biosphere, like Brian Eno, has been a pioneer in the genre of electronic ambient music. Additionally, like Eno, Jenssen is a master of using music of a frequently quiet and unobtrusive nature to generate tension and an often palpable mood. Aside from his releases under the Biosphere moniker, Jenssen is an experienced soundtrack composer, having composed the haunting, icy score to the original 1997 Norwegian film Insomnia. Dropsonde, though perhaps closest, structurally, to the 2000 Biosphere release Cirque, is the artist's most melodic release to date. Conspicuously moving away from the glacial drones and minimalist dub that was featured so prominently on previous Biosphere releases, Dropsonde shows Jenssen putting his compositional skills to better use, as well as utilizing a richer sonic palette than that to which we are accustomed. The album is an accessible and beautifully-produced recording that shows what Geir Jenssen is capable of when he allows his Biosphere project to thaw out just a little.

D-Side (France):

The Sunday Times (UK):

The List (UK):

Foxydigitalis (USA):

Biosphere is already a legend in the genre of ambient techno/electronica and his numerous albums are considered to be genre-defining by many. Still, his music has never sounded overly exciting to me and that hasn´t changed with the release of “Dropsonde.” After its initial LP-only release, it is now available on CD in the typical impeccable Touch design with photos by Jon Wozencroft and some extra tracks.

Because Geir Jenssen a.k.a. Bioshphere lives in the far north of Norway, “arctic” is a standard synonym to describe his music. In comparison to some of his previous work, “Dropsonde” is much warmer in feel though. The introductory “Dissolving Clouds” marks a hopeful beginning of the disc with its shimmering sine wave sounds. What follows is a variety of two different types of tracks. Several tunes combine sampled jazz beats with dancing hi-hats with the standard digital arsenal of looped organs, strings, etc. These tracks are not unpleasant at all, but they have been heard in one or the other variation many times over the last seven or eight years. Also, tracks like “Fall In Fall Out” or “Birds Fly By Flapping Their Wings” show such little variation that they get boring quickly. In a way they sound like sketches streched to fit the standard “five minutes plus” format of ambient techno. Only on “Daphnis 26”, Biosphere shows his real capabilites in the above described first category of tunes on this disc. The drum samples are more tribal and the track is developing in an energetic way.

Apart from “Daphnis 26”, beatless songs are Jenssen´s real strength. The slowly morphing “From a Solid to a Liquid” is a beautiful and soothing piece of dreamy ambience. So are “Warmed By the Drift” and “People Are Friends”, which feature the more somber aura, Biosphere is known for. Biosphere fans – and I know there a lot of them out there – will be happy to hear that the CD version is half an hour longer than the LP version. For me though, 70 minutes are just too long when there are only four or five tracks that are interesting enough to disrupt me from my daily ongoings. [Stephan Bauer]

Ikonen (Germany):

Der norwegische Musiker Geir Jenssen hat mit seinem Projekt Biosphere seit Jahren eine eigene Liga der Ambientmusik eröffnet: Immer weiter treibt er seine mitunter kühlen, düsteren, aber stets originellen Erkundungen der nördlichen Landschaft. "Dropsonde" - benannt nach Wettersonden, die in der äußeren Hemisphäre abgeworfen werden - erringt mit leichter Hand jazzige Sphären, ohne den faszinierenden Soundscape-Charakter zu verraten, der Stücke wie"Novelty Waves" zu weltweiten Hits werden ließ. Bediente sich Jenssen früher oft technoider Strukturen, vertraut er seit "Substrata" auch auf minimalistische Flächen, die sich nur langsam aus der Firnis lösen.

Anders als seine Kollegen vom erdigen Darkambient-Fach tendieren die Biosphere-Kompositionen nicht zur Erstarrung. Sie befreien sich schichtweise von ihrer Kruste, um in luftigere Höhen aufzubrechen, zu denen sie von flirrenden Miles-Davis-Beats getragen werden. Doch hinter dieser Leichtigkeit lauert erneut das Unbekannte. Erst mehrere Dimensionen müssen erschlossen werden, um die volle Tiefe dieses Werkes zu offenbaren. Stimmen wurden laut, die hier das reifste und aufregendste Album von Biosphere vermuten, und tatsächlich suchen die 11 kubistischen Klangskulpturen ihresgleichen - "Dropsonde" lullt ein, spornt an, irritiert und verstört, wie man es von einer Ambientsinfonie nur erwarten kann. Die Titel bleiben dabei assoziativ und rätselhaft: "Warmed by the Drift", "From a Solid to a Liquid", "Daphnis 26", "Sheerbroke" usw. Die stilvolle Umschlaggestaltung bietet dazu Detailaufnahmen von Blüten in verfremdeten Farben.

Wer glaubt, Ambientmusik habe mit Brian Eno bereits vor 20 Jahren ihre Möglichkeiten erschöpft, sollte sich dringend "Dropsonde" besorgen, ein eigenes Kapitel in der Geschichte des Klangkunstprojekts Biosphere wie auch der ambienten elektronischen Musik allgemein - ein Meisterwerk. [Marcus Stiglegger]

Dusted (USA):

At work above the Artic Circle for around 15 years, Biosphere's last few records have shown Norwegian Geir Jenssen using subtle conceptual tweaks to build upon the landmark gossamer style he came close to perfecting with 1997’s Substrata. While Shenzou's Debussy reworkings and Autour de la Lune's mining of a French radio play based on Jules Verne's De la Terre à la Lune provided welcome abstractions, there's a certain unwanted heavy-hand that settles over Dropsonde's approach of modal jazz structures and appended percussion. Whereas Jenssen had previously allowed his instrumental loops, samples and gauzy textures to traffic in hints and innuendos, here they become overstated and bluntly obvious. Melody is the focus, and while that's not necessarily a bad thing, this emphasis forces the loss of some of the brilliant sheen that made his other records so intoxicating.

Originally released as a six-song LP, the CD version of Dropsonde doubles the length of the vinyl and still manages to omit one track from the original release. The major problem here comes from the added percussion. While not affixed to every track, Jenssen's sampled drum loops sound as if they were stapled to his pieces as a mere afterthought, and generally his rhythmic counterpoints lack variation throughout the course of his tracks. Previously cadences were implied, but here they come front and center. This isn't really bad, per se, and when the titular signature kicks on "In Triple Time," the effect is actually quite sublime. But there wasn’t much of a need to muddy up the birdsong recordings on "Birds Fly by Flapping Their Wings" with generic drum patterns when his typical exegesis would have done just fine. Likewise, the pronounced blurps of "Altostratus" chafe a bit too much, while the harder loop of "Sherbrooke" sounds like an unwelcome return to the click + cut aesthetic.

There are patches of brilliance throughout Dropsonde, however, even with the added skins. "Daphnis 26" approaches Jan Jelinek-worthy loops by holding the percussive patterns at bay – they threaten to pulse hard, but Jenssen always manages to pull back on the reins. For those seeking a return to his earlier highlights, "From a Solid to a Liquid" capably soundtracks transference to melodic whisps, while "Warmed by the Drift" glacially stretches string tones to an effect that almost sounds like bowed ice blocks.

Ultimately, it would be horribly unfair to fault Geir Jenssen for attempting to reach outside of his soundworld in a manner such as this. After all, a lack of variation has undone quite a few musicians who haven't been going for nearly as long. However, much of the Biosphere catalogue earned repeated spins because multiple listens were necessary to fully grasp the intricacies of Jenssen's work. Here, the emphasis on modal structures reveals too much too quickly, and the loss of the subtle makes the album just a bit forgettable. Still, it shows that Geir has plenty of tricks up his sleeve even after a decade and a half of work. Whatever comes next will undoubtedly still be worth a listen. [Michael Crumsho]

Signal To Noise (USA):

BerlinXS (Germany):

Spex (Germany):

Westzeit (Germany):

His Voice (CZ)::

Classic FM (UK):

#Welcome to the Chiller Cabinet Playlist Email#

EVERY SATURDAY & SUNDAY 2 - 4 am

1 0 0 ~ 1 0 2 fm

A two hour mix of ambience, movies, & minimalism.

---------------------------------------------------------------
SATURDAY 8 APRIL
FEATURED ALBUM - DROPSONDE
BIOSPHERE is Norwegian composer and performer Geir Jenssen. You may
recognise his work without knowing it, so frequently does it crop up on
TV trailers and idents. As with all of the BIOSPHERE albums, the music
draws you in and makes you want to listen and feel. Jenssen's work acts
on a very emotional level, one that encourages you to drift away into a
haze of images and scenes brought to you by the music.

We thought it was worth mentioning BIOSPHERE is touring UK Picture
Houses from the 19th to the 23rd April (www.picturehouses.co.uk)

Wednesday 19th April, LONDON, Gate Cinema (Notting Hill) Thursday 20th
April, LIVERPOOL, Picturehouse at FACT Friday 21st April, LONDON,
Greenwich Picture House Saturday 22nd April, LONDON, Ritzy (Brixton)
Sunday 23rd April, BRIGHTON, Duke Of Yorks Picturehouse

|1|Biosphere|Altostratus|5:11|
|2|Chanticleer|Grace to you|5:43|
|3|Boards of Canada|Tears from the Compound Eye|4:03|
|4|Colleen|the happy sea|3:00|
|5|David Gordon / Henry Purcell|Hocus Pocus|2:44|
|6|Biosphere|From a solid to a liquid|5:19|
|7|King Creosote|KC Vice Like Gist Of It - Jon Hopkins
Dub Remix|4:22|
|8|Amon Tobin|Theme from Battery|4:28|
|9|Thomas Newman|Permission to Fire|4:54|
|10|Biosphere|Dissolving Clouds|4:28|
|11|Ted Barnes|In the Shed|4:30|
|12|David Gordon / Henry Purcell|Music for a While|3:52|
|13|Colleen|Everyone Alive Wants Answers|3:27|
|14|ISAN|Gymnopedie 2|1:57|
|15|Iris Garrelfs|encounter 7|4:49|

HOUR 2

|16|Arvo Part|Fur Alina|10:36|
|17|Alex Heffes & Kawesa|The Question|3:25|
|18|Chanticleer|In Winter's Keeping|8:44|
|19|Angelo Badalamenti|Country Theme|3:37|
|20|Aoki Takamasa/Tujiko Noriko|fly2|2:51|
|21|Biosphere|People are Friends|10:39|
|22|Colleen|bubbles which on the water swim|3:11|
|23|John Barry|Okay Dad; Mother Shut Up!|2:52|
|24|Colleen|the golden morning breaks|5:22|
|25|Biosphere|Warmed by the drift|6:50|

Homework:
www.biosphere.no
myspace.com/biospheregeirjenssen
www.touchmusic.org.uk

Beam Me Up (DE):

infratunes.com (France):

La musique de Geir Jenssen s’est toujours caractérisée par une relation de transparence absolue entre le paysage et les constructions sonores. C’est justement cette transparence, cette limpidité qui a permis à cette musique d’échapper à l’écueil de la bande-son pour film imaginaire ou paysage boréal – contrairement aux clichés les plus tenaces qui courent sur Biosphere. Ici une batterie récurrente et particulièrement attachées aux rythmes ternaires et aux cymbales prodigue quelque ouverture vers une rythmique jazz, un swing discret.

Oui, la musique de Biosphere est immersive mais elle n’est ni visuelle, ni descriptive. Elle est plutôt le vecteur souple d’atmosphères qui ne sauraient exister autrement que sous la forme très particulière de cette musique que l’on qualifiera d’ambient par facilité, mais qui est toujours en excès face à ce qu’entend proposer l’ambient.

Si elle doit être rattachée à une expérience concrète de l’espace, la musique de Biosphere porte la trace des lieux où elle est née plus qu’elle n’est transcription musicale de ces lieux. Cette distinction est importante, qui rappelle que la musique n’est pas secondaire, comme un pont vers l’image, mais qu’elle est ici toujours première et dernière.

Les titres, qui font office de notes de pochette et d’intention tant ils sont clairs, semblent à chaque fois décrire un phénomène atmosphérique ou naturel – moins parce qu’il a été observé que parce que la musique est née à l’intérieur de celui-ci. La musique de Biosphere est ainsi faite qu’elle porte toujours une attention infinie à ces conditions de possibilité, à l’espace, à la durée, au lieu et au temps qui la voient naître. Et si les compositions de Dropsonde ne portent pas toujours la singularité des productions précédentes de Biosphere, si leur pouvoir d’envoûtement leur fait parfois défaut, soyons certains au moins que cet album poursuit l’art unique que s’est inventé Geir Jenssen. [Johnny One Shot]

Orkus (DE):

Bad Alchemy (DE):

Wie Ambient und Environmental Music die Untiefen bloßer New-Age-Beschallung umschiffen kann, zeigte der Norweger Geir Jenssen immer wieder durch die subtile ‚nordische‘ Atmosphäre seiner Klangbilder mit ihrer Anmutung von Schnee, Eis und dünn besiedelten Landstrichen, die sich unter der Mitternachtssonne nicht mehr sehr unterscheiden von den kalten, sternklaren Leer- und Dunkelräumen hinter dem Mond, zu dem er mit Autour de la Lune gereist war. Hier zieht er bei ‚Birds Fly By Flapping Their Wings‘ ganz andere Register mit einem rhythmischen Swing aus jazzigen Loops. Hihattickling, Kontrabass und ein Keyboardriff kreisen in sich selbst und das gibt auch bei ‚In Triple Time‘ und ‚Arafura‘ einen je monoton mäandernden, aber doch in sich sanft bebenden Kammerflimmer-Kollektief-Touch, zu dem manchmal Hunde bellen, was den Unterschied von Drinnen und Draußen noch unterstreicht. Die Natur bleibt als Horizont präsent - ‚Dissolving Clouds‘, ‚Warmed by the Drift‘ -, aber die Klänge suchen einen Weg, Festes zu schmelzen (‚From a Solid to a Liquid‘) und Wärme auszustrahlen. Die Musik bohrt wie eine Wettersonde durch die Schichten des Gemüts und misst unterwegs die Temperatur. Musik, so cool wie schwarzer Samt, die aber doch einen Hang zu Zwielicht und Tristesse nicht ganz verleugnen kann, zu halbdämmrigen Gedankenfluchten, aus denen man durch den Marschtrommelloop und Herzschlagbass von ‚Fall in Fall out‘ genötigt wird, den Blick wieder zu heben und um sich zu schauen, während ‚Daphnis 26‘ den Puls mit einem federnden und dann sogar fiebrig anziehenden Unterton noch weiter beschleunigt. ‚Altostratus‘ bringt ein vertikales Moment ins Spiel, ein melodiöses Funksignal mit gemütlichem SF-Anstrich, und ‚Sherbrooke‘ einen automatenhaften Headbangerbeat zu wolkig geflocktem Keyboardgekräußel. Das finale ‚People Are Friends‘ (husthust - Entschuldigung) nimmt sich noch einmal gut 10 Minuten Zeit, um vor dunkel dröhnendem Hintergrund wie blind nach einer Melodie zu tasten, während eine Frauenstimme geisterhaft wispert: „I want to stay.“ [Rigobert Dittmann]

Groove (DE):

Music Scan (DE):

Eine neues Biosphere Album bringt aufgrund der grazilen Schönheit eines Großteils der Vorgänger eine gewisse Erwartungshaltung mit sich. Diese kann Geir Jenssen jedoch auch auf “Dropsonde" wieder ganz mühelos entkräften, denn nach dem etwas wirren und bemüht eklektizistischen “Autour De La Lune" besinnt man sich wieder auf die minimalistischen Stärken, die Alben wie “Microgravity" oder “Substrata" zu unentbehrlichen Bestandteilen einer jeden Electronica und Ambient Sammlung gemacht haben. Die leidige und auch reichlich hilflosen Bezüge zum Wohnort Jenssens 500 km nördlich des Polarkreises müssen hier nicht mehr in die Deutung der Musik einbezogen werden, denn diese steht seit vielen Jahren für sich, ohne auf regionale oder geographische Verortungen bauen zu müssen. Auf “Dropsonde" verbindet sich eine schier unermüdlicher Puls mit fein flirrenden Harmonien und hauchdünnen musikalischen Schichtungen, die nur auf den ersten Blick stillzustehen scheinen, denn wenn man genauer hinhört, ist hier fast alles ständig in Bewegung. Diese Bewegungen sind bei Biosphere jedoch subtil, ja fast minimal und deshalb kann es auch schon mal etwas länger dauern, bis sich ein Track zu etwas entwickelt, das man mit gutem gewissen auch so nennen kann. Die dichten Atmosphären sind sowohl beruhigend und warm als auch bedrohlich und düster und können ganz unvermittelt und ohne irgendwelche großen Gesten ins Gegenteil umschlagen. Dieses gegenseitige Wechselspiel oder Abhängigkeitsverhältnis von Leichtigkeit und Schwere, und die Art wie Geir Jenssen damit umgeht, ist das eigentlich Faszinierende an Biosphere, denn kaum jemand sonst versteht es, einen so spannenden und geschmackvollen Mittelweg zwischen diesen Extremen zu gehen. Ich bin sicher, wir werden noch mehr zu hören bekommen und darauf darf man sich schon jetzt freuen. 8.5/10 [Matthias]

solenoide (France):

Voilà plus de 15 ans que Geir Jennsen arpente les vallées froides de l’ambient electronica. Quinze années d’une emprise discrète sur le pôle le plus avancé des musiques électro-climatiques. Un bail plutôt long - à l’échelle de la technosphère – à l’égard duquel cet album tient lieu d’accord tacite de renouvellement.

Flirtant d'abord avec les ambitions du dancefloor mental avant de se soumettre aux exigences de l’art contemporain, Biosphere a toujours su évoluer par paliers sans jamais nier sa fascination pour l’environnement polaire, les paysages nocturnes ou encore l’observation céleste. C’est dans ce dernier vivier thématique, mais aussi sous la forme d’un retour vers des territoires sonores plus hospitaliers, qu’opère "Dropsonde". Un album basé sur la superposition de boucles, de nappes et autres tintements sophistiqués, qui s’enrichit sur quelques titres de samples à connotation jazz marquant une parenté avec les montages cyberjazz du Innerzone Orchestra (de Carl Craig). Possible synthèse des travaux antérieurs de Biosphere, "Dropsonde" trouve le point d’équilibre et de tension idéal entre nébulosité froide et chaleur anxieuse. Constellés de détails riches et évocateurs, associant matériaux organiques et traitements cliniques, les 11 pièces de ce disque dérivent dans notre imaginaire comme autant de sondes en apesanteur, autant de sondes audio-numériques que les amateurs de minimalisme extatique s’approprieront avec bonheur.

Au bout du compte, "Dropsonde" se révèle être l’album le plus entêtant de Biosphere, celui qui relie magistralement les notions d’abstraction et de contemplation. Un album qui, en s’appuyant sur la plus large palette de textures, d’échantillons et de rythmes jamais utilisés par l’artiste, conforte sa position de paysagiste phare des musiques digitales.

Black (DE):

030 (Germany):

Wenn es um atmosphärisch verdichteten elektronischen Wohlklang geht, ist Geir Jennsen aka Biosphere schon seit Jahren allererste Adresse. Er lässt es zwar immer wieder auf ähnliche Weise blubbern, aber er versteht etwas davon, seine Klangwölkchen mal nach Sonnenschein, mal nach Regen aussehen zu lassen und ist ein echter Meister darin, Stimmungen akustisch einzufangen. Licht aus, Musik an, Füße hoch und sich wegdriften lassen, so lautet die Bedienungsanleitung für diese Platte.

Skug (Germany):

BigLoad (Germany):

... (Czechia):

Playboy (Poland):

Fear Drop (France):

Il arrive que le glacier dépose quelque récompense qu’il a longtemps roulée et érodée dans ses fonds, ses fonds rêches et sombres comme l’inconscient. Polis, les galets, les éclats, montrent beaucoup de sérénité, sans d’autre trace de l’effort séculaire qui les a émoussés que l’annulation de leur tranchant. Il y a quelques années, au début de la carrière solo de Geir Jenssen sous le nom de Biosphere, il avait formé le projet d’une musique rythmée et électronique assumant ses déhanchements dans un environnement glacé, la froide lumière du néon. Peu à peu, les boucles, les tissages se sont allongés, pour prendre les tournures fantasmées d’une musique arctique semée d’éclats, jusqu’à l’abstraction könerienne de Autour de la lune. Après ce passage dans les glaces, Jenssen, comme passé de l’autre côté du pôle, entame sa descente vers des zones plus tempérées. Les neiges fondent, les pierres qu’elles ont roulées et les moraines qu’elles ont creusées gardent l’empreinte d’anciens mouvements que la zone hyperboréenne a transformés. Les sons de cymbales, les contrebasses, jusqu’à des roulements de caisse claire !, sont les nouvelles références rythmiques que Jenssen a héritées de certaines de ses écoutes (Miles Davis, Jon Hassell), filtrées par le souffle du froid et de la brume tout en nuances d’aurore boréale. Dropsonde est la traduction de cette progression, la renaissance à la lumière de gestes et d’articulations qui ont été marquées à jamais par le froid. Le parti pris est presque acoustique, concernant les fragments rythmiques, les percussions et les basses, comme lors d’une recréation virtuelle d’un orchestre jazz. A cela s’ajoutent les vagues de lumière, les multiples étincelles sur la glace qui fond, des irisations. La mélodie est là, qui ne peut que s’engraisser dans pareil terreau. Loin de la pesanteur, ces odes à la souplesse se déroulent en défiant les lois physiques tout autant que les conventions électro ou acoustiques qu’elles mêlent. L’une, fausse chaleur – dont les vagues ont le pli courbé, la finition en coupole – : le relief percussif dénonce son artificialité dans la boucle. L’autre, électronique chauffée : la réverbération synthétique s’incruste de mille éclats métalliques lancés par les cymbales. Les morceaux centraux de l’album, In triple time, From a solid to a liquid et Arafura, sont de ce point de vue exemplaires d’équilibre.

Geir Jenssen a accompli un acte très simple et en même temps presque irréalisable. Il a filmé la naissance de la lumière. Son ballon météo (Dropsonde) capte et rend compte de cette éclosion qui s’apparente à d’autres transformations qu’atmosphériques, à une métamorphose, à la mise au jour d’un organisme musical qui a longuement mûri ses appendices mélodiques et rythmiques dans son cocon de froid. [Denis Boyer]

Sound of Music (Sweden):

Första gången jag hörde ambient musik var jag sexton år gammal, gick på gymnasiet och lyssnade mestadels på band som Stereolab, Boards of Canada och en del Björk. Jag kommer tydligt ihåg hur jag av ren slump råkat ladda ned en låt med en snubbe som kallade sig Biosphere, låten hette ”The Silent Orchestra” och var bland det skummaste jag hört. Det var för mig då ganska oklart varför jag inte kunde sluta lyssna på låten, den hade ju ingen melodi som fastnade på hjärnan eller någon text man kunde gå runt att sjunga på.

Idag börjar jag nog förstå varför ”The Silent Orchestra” är en sådan låt som jag inte bara lyssnade väldigt mycket på utan även började bygga ut mitt hela musikintresse kring. För efter upptäckten av Biosphere följde en utforskning av den ambienta musikkonsten jag sporadiskt arbetar med även nu för tiden. Och det är nog tack vare de upptäckter jag gjort jag lärt mig förstå vad det är som är så fascinerande och fängslande med musik som Biospheres. Det hela har med att göra en form av aktivt lyssnande. Ambient (och även andra former av experimentell musik) lämnar nämligen något upp till lyssnaren, en slags öppenhet för reaktion eller kanske mer ett tvång till reaktion, men istället för att väcka denna reaktion genom en till exempel en textbaserad historia gör ambient musik detta genom rent känsloförmedlande. För på något sätt känns det faktiskt som den bäst passande beskrivningen av experimentell musik, känsloförmedlande.

Biosphere heter egentligen Geir Jenssen och kommer från Tromsö, Norge. Innan Geir började göra musik med sitt Biosphere-projekt spelade han i det Cocteau Twins-influerade bandet Bel Canto. Han har under tiden han arbetat som Biosphere haft en rad sidoprojekt men med jämna mellanrum återvänt till sitt soloprojekt. I dagarna gjorde han det för tionde gången när han gav ut sin senaste skiva ”Dropsonde”.

Jag har under de få år jag levt med Biospheres musik hunnit bli besviken ett flertal gånger, när och varför har varierat men det har inte bara handlat om hans nyare skivor. Ifjol kom till exempel den väldigt underskattade ”Shenzhou” och än en gång var jag en glad beundrare av Geir Jenssens musik. Det hjälpte även till att öka exaltationen över hans senaste släpp. ”Dropsonde” är dock emellertid mer av en besvikelse än en vacker fortsättning på ”Shenzhou”. Bland annat har Geir valt att bygga skivan runt jazz-slingor, något som rent spontant kanske känns som en intressant idé men som i praktiken bara blir att låta som ett tröttsamt Kammerflimmer Kollektief. Det enda som känns bra med att ”Dropsonde” inte lever upp till förväntningarna är att man vet att Biosphere snart är tillbaka med en skiva som placerar honom back on top, under tiden kan man till e

Biosphere "Autour de la Lune" reviews

Touching Extremes (Italy):

The first of the nine movements forming the skeleton of "Autour de la lune" is somehow deceiving: a very long repetition of the same electronic ripple which had me thinking along the lines of "Geir Jenssen goes minimalist", pretty disorientating in regard to the total purity of the largest part of the following aural beauties. But - having been Biosphere a class act for many years now - one doesn't need to wait too much to find a way through a mass of frequencies that are sometimes scarily powerful and all times absolutely mesmerizing like in the fantastic "Deviation", a vibrational kneading on the cerebrum to which anyone who listens will become addicted in a matter of seconds and that puts most of the sacred cows of the "inner spirit department" to a heavy shame. At least 50 of the 75 minutes of this disc could be successfully used to cure nerve-related disorders; listening without headphones will add the resonance of walls and objects to something which - more than music - should be defined as evolutional phenomenon. When "Autour" reaches its conclusion, you'll notice your cochlea has suddenly become thirsty, for this is a milestone of contemporary electronica. [Massimo Ricci]

Record Collecter (UK):

Premier Norwegian space cadet

Space music? What’s that? You could argue for Hendrix’s Electric Ladyland as the first big move into space music. Then came Pink Floyd, Tangerine Dream and the late 1980s ambient house extravaganzas of The Orb, but all of them made music more akin to mental space excursions than the real thing. The first LP made to accompany space exploration was Eno’s 1983 opus Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks. And now we have by far the truest instance of bona fide space music in the history of sound. Biosphere is Geir Jenssen, Norwegian sonic explorer, mountaineer and creator of six albums of Arctic chill since 1991. His speciality is the drone; stretching tones as far as they can go and dropping discrete samples into the mix.. he uses sound from MIR space-station recordings and Jules Verne radio dramatisations from France. Sustained over six movements with names like Vibration and Rotation this is heady stuff indeed. The 22-minute Translation gives you the genuine feeling of heavy mechanisms moving through the icy stillness of space. Glistening vestiges of sound and subsonic frequencies occur throughout, reminding us that in space the only sounds we will hear are our own. Tremendous. **** [Mark Prendergast]

Plan B (UK):

Jules Verne spoke of the Baltimore Gun Club being the first people to send men to the moon. Being as it was during the nineteenth century, and, more presciently, being as it was a fiction, we do not of course accept this as being in any way real. However, its prophetic view of a future now past lends it a degree of reality, a resonance that we still sense today. Or at least Biosphere feels so, what with his latest LP beginning life as a Radio France Culture commission based on a 1960s radio dramatisation of Verne's De la Terre á la Lune. Hailing from Norway, Biosphere is known as Geir Jenssen within Earth nomenclature, and has an overriding obsession with all things related to space. Even his non-musical activities appear to reach for the stars: he is a keen mountaineer. Returning to his Jules Verne-inspired broadcast, he proceeded to further manipulate the recordings, tweaking and fine-tuning the sounds until they eventually became Autour de la Lune. Listening to the finished product is rather like tapping into some late night extraterrestrial radio station; found sounds spun light years beyond their source. Distance and time have led them here – into our very bodies – so that instead of being at an irreducible remove from our humanity, it becomes of such in an almost primal fashion, remaining nonetheless wholly unfamiliar. The journey to the moon, therefore, becomes metaphor with an inner bent: the path toward the self through the ages, that sepulchral globe as ancient talisman.

The crepuscular ‘Translation’ allows us a languid introduction to matters, its lingering nuances given breath within unfamiliar atmospherics. It is an extended organ exercise in which the organ, a man-made machine, transmutes into the organic, separating itself from the human world as if through constant manipulation a point is reached whereby the thing no longer is what it was; the sound takes on a life of its own. In forcing a cataclysm, the sounds may then breathe their own patterns, their singularly inherent idiosyncrasies. ‘Rotation’ then delivers a portentous consideration of inevitable horror; its low bass rumblings wouldn't be out of place in the first diner scene of Mulholland Drive, a denouement before internal crisis. If, by late-seventies Hollywood logic, no one can hear you scream in space, then ‘Modifié’ proves that you may at least be heard emitting a series of groans. Distorted voices bubble away and project themselves into the eyes of what could be considered a cyclical, and psychical, Kansas storm.

It is "Déviation" that holds the real power. The track begins, and I think the LP has dipped into nothingness – all I can hear is the murmur of a plane overhead. But then it gradually manifests itself like too-near-orgasm-inducing foreplay as a destructively low drone, ripping at the air around the speakers; making gravity fucking bleed for its sins. It has that spazzed-out washing machine aura about it, and I fear that it's going to go so low that it’ll send stacks of Belle And Sebastian and Pastels CDs flying off of the speaker, catapulting them into the naked space of the room at terrific speeds, gouging eyes and causing deaf panic.

‘Disparu’ is a then a thing of succinct beauty, looping minor keys signposting reflective impulses. The relief in the air is palpable, the sound waves nudging emotive molecules into balmy calm. But it was never going to be all about peace all of the time, and as if to rub the notion roughly into your face, ‘Inverse’ returns with a bass-heavy growl, microcosmic vistas of the insect world eating up the foreground. The end itself must subsequently return to the beginning, a reprise of themes, a circularity; that silver globe perched maddeningly still in the night sky. ‘Tombant’ concurs. Once more we encounter a sustained organ pulse, briefly recalling Jim O'Rourke's 'Happy Days' before the sound cleans up, spreads out, disappears. Into nothing? Arguably. Into space and time? Obviously.

A journey to the moon is currently a two-way affair, a there and back again. So is this LP, since it sets you on a journey that ends at the beginning. But like lunar exploration itself, you will discover something in the process, however intangible it may be, and the beginning of things will therefore be changed upon your return, made new again. And that, through time and space, would surely please Jules Verne. [Stewart Gardiner]

BBCi (UK):

There was something deeply nocturnal and gorgeously luminescent about the remixes of Arne Nordheim pieces provided by Biosphere and Deathprod on 1998's Nordheim Transformed (one of Rune Grammofon's first and arguably most beautiful releases). Autour De La Lune sounds like the long-delayed successor to those pieces. There is a degree of commonality between that project and this new release insofar as Biosphere (aka Geir Jenssen) has again chosen to respond to external sonic stimuli. In response to a commission for La Festival de Radio France et Montpellier, Jenssen samples dialogue from a dramatisation of Jules Verne's "De La Terre a La Lune", a nineteenth century story that accurately predicts aspects of space flight that would be unknown until NASA's expeditions decades later. To these samples are added sounds captured by the MIR space station, which were then incorporated into Jenssen's own compositions. The result is a breathtakingly beautiful, haunted work which is divided into nine movements over 71 minutes. What is most immediately noticeable is the spare and spectral nature of this music. One of these pieces might best be described as the sonic equivalent of the moon's milky white light; another appears to record the infinitely heavy transit of that globe as it arcs gradually across the sky, and another might be a spectograph recording of the moon's palest phase. Rather unsettlingly, these pieces in totality convey the impression that they are fragments of the moon, rather than songs to or about the moon. Pigeonholing Autour De La Lune as Ambient would be painfully simplistic. Although attention might be drawn to Brian Eno's Apollo as a comparable endeavour, Eno devoted a significant portion of that recording to musical metaphors for the astronauts' navigation of the moon, which took the form of country-tinged atmospheres. Biosphere does something very different by expressing something like a lunar essence in sound, one devoid of humankind. This is a subtle work of alchemical invocation which summons the moon into the listener's presence, even at midday. [Colin Buttimer]

indieworkshop.com (USA):

Geir Jenssen (better known as Biosphere) is one of the leading players in ambient/electronic/drone scene. The Norwegian’s work goes far beyond the three previous albums (this is his fourth full length); he has been involved with numerous sound installations and soundtracks. He has also been commissioned for his work. Autour de la Luna is actually the finished result of a piece Radio France Culture had asked Jenssen to do.

From the way it sounds, Radio France Culture left the door wide open for Jenssen. With the permission to dive into RFC’s large archives, Jenssen set his sights on an early 60’s dramatization of a space journey. Jules Verne originally wrote the program in the 19th century. Some of the original broadcast is actually used by Jenssen within the album. Bits of radio cross talk and the white noise of failed transmissions are blended in with the pulsating and swelling bass tones. The first few tracks are nothing more than an ebbing and flowing of lonely vibrations, sucking you in to the idea of an increasingly cold and dark space.

And to be fair, you are going to have to be ready to be engrossed into the music. You have to be prepared to don your headphones and sit back for 74 minutes. It’s a trip into aloneness and desolation. Only a few artists this gifted in minimalism could pull something like this off. One of them, Brian Eno, has already given us his space opus (1983’s Apollo), and now we have something to hold up next to it. The unending drone of Autour de la Luna will not appeal to a wide audience, but that has never stopped the best experimenters of our times. The drive to create something so primal is not found in every artist, but when someone pulls off such in engaging album with little more than a concept and some low frequencies tones… well, you just have to applaud that.

The Milk Factory (UK):

In a career spanning nearly two decades, seven solo albums and a number of collaborations, Geir Jenssen has gone from one third of a pop outfit to being one of the most respected names on the electronic scene. Having given up his archaeological studies to concentrate on music in the mid eighties, Jenssen was one of the founding members of Norwegian pop outfit Bel Canto, with whom he recorded two albums, White-Out Conditions (1987) and Birds Of Passage (1989), before leaving to concentrate on his solo work. His first post-Bel Canto album, The North Pole By Submarine, as Bleep, was heavily influenced by the late eighties house and acid movement, yet, it is with his second project, Biosphere, named after the Biosphere 2 scientific project, that Jenssen gained recognition across the board. If his first couple of albums under this moniker were still displaying traces of club culture, Jenssen was already moving away from straightforward dance music to explore more atmospheric grounds. In October 1995, following the international success of Novelty Waves (Patashnik, 1994), used a the soundtrack for a Levi’s advert, Jenssen was commissioned a new piece for the Polar Music Festival, held in his native town of Tromsø, situated 70 degrees north of the Arctic circle, on which he worked with British musician Bobby Bird, aka Higher Intelligence Agency. The commission was released two years later as Polar Sequences and was followed by a return collaboration, Birmingham Frequencies, recorded in Bird’s hometown. Around the same time, Jenssen released what remains his most accomplished record with Substrata. Autour De La Lune was originally commissioned by Radio France Culture’s Atelier De Creation Radiophonique and the French Ministry of Culture as a one-off performance to be premiered at Le Festival De Radio France in Montpellier, Southern France, at the end of July last year. For this, Jenssen was granted exceptional access to the radio’s vast archives, and eventually started work based on, and inspired by, a dramatisation of Jules Verne’s De La Terre A La Lune (From Earth To Moon). The original book, published in 1868, was a stunningly accurate tale of a manned space mission as would happened a hundred years later, and was followed by a second novel, Autour De La Lune, four years later. For his project, Jenssen originally used a series of sample taken for the 1960 radio broadcast together with sounds recorded on the MIR space station. The festival was eventually cancelled due to strikes, but the piece was broadcast on Radio France Culture on 21 September 2003 and made available for download for a while. Jenssen continued to work on this piece afterward, adapting it to release it as an album. Autour De La Lune, described as a ‘symphony in nine movements’, opens with an epic twenty-two-minute journey through sonic pulsations and chromatic alterations forming the core of a slow moving melody. Despite the bare sonic palette used, Translation is monumental and fascinating. From there on, Autour De La Lune sinks into darker territories, with the sparse Vibratoire, Déviation and Circulaire set at the heart of deep space. All three tracks are formed around a single infra bass drone, and appear almost static, as if frozen in time. Life returns on Disparu as Jenssen carves a repetitive melodic motif. Heard at close range (headphones), a faint beat structure is actually perceptible in the distance as it waxes and wanes with the melody. Rotation, Modifié and Inverse as set somewhere in between Translation’s riches and Déviation’s desolation. They are also manifestation of Jenssen growing interest in electro-acoustic, as resonances and radio signals interfere with tonal textures. Tombant, which closes the album, appears to return to the ambience of Translation, yet the mood is more subdued here as if the fuel level of Jenssen’s space ship, on its way back to Earth, was getting low. As Geir Jenssen matures with every album, he continues to surprise his audience, and Autour De La Lune is one of his most evocative and thrilling records to date. Despite the austerity of this album, Jenssen builds on a rich emotional palette to create a stunning and dense piece of work.

Dusted (USA):

Albums like this should come embossed with the warning, “Do not play on crummy little speakers.” Biosphere (a.k.a. Geir Jenssen) makes music that you feel as well as hear. A native of Tromso, Norway, Jenssen uses the Biosphere alias whenever he goes to work in the ambient music mines, and he dug up some especially heavy ore to mold Autour de la Lune. That may seem ironic given its title, which translates as “Around the moon.” But this is not weightless music; indeed, the central three-track sequence – “Vibratoire,” “Déviation,” and “Circulaire” – sit quite heavily on the chest; subsonic bass frequencies are like that. Why all the French, one asks? The album is a refinement of a piece that Jenssen composed for Radio France Culture which took its inspiration and some of its raw material from an early-’60s audio realization of Jules Verne’s story De la Terre à la Lune. The opener “Translation” lasts nearly 22 minutes; built from pulsing, looped organ tones, it develops a tension so absorbing it could stand perfectly fine on its own as an EP. But there’s more. The long, glassy resonations on “Rotation” evoke most overtly space’s vast emptiness. They also set up the record’s loveliest moment, “Modifié,” a masterpiece of shortwave manipulation. Its smudged voices and rusted metal beats materialize out of crackling fog as eerily as anything on The Conet Project. Then comes the album’s aforementioned center of gravity, the series of chest-compression exercises. Coherent, complete, and not a minute too long despite a running time of almost 75, Autour de la Lune is a deeply affecting and unabashedly lovely recording. [Bill Meyer]

Other Music (USA):

On first listen, you probably wouldn't guess that the new album by electronic artist Geir Jenssen (a/k/a Biosphere) was composed entirely using source material from a 1960s French radio dramatization of Jules Verne's From The Earth To The Moon. Like his fellow Norwegian Helge Sten (Deathprod, Supersilent), Biosphere makes droning ambient electronic music that is deep, dark, and huge. While you might not recognize more than a few snippets of the story's dialogue buried behind the album's thick and ominous soundscapes, the music definitely evokes the loss through tragedy of an age-old romantic fantasy of space flight. One can imagine the sustained roar of burning rockets, the rumbling of a spacecraft escaping from the Earth's atmosphere, and the terrifying silence of outer space. Pretty intense stuff. [RH]

VITAL (The Netherlands):

As a young man I had children versions of some of the Jules Verne books and one of them was the journey to the moon story. a beautiful hardcover book with original etchings as far as I remember. As a young man I liked learning about our solar system and the planets and so I liked this particular Verne story a lot, which is a true visionairy one (or maybe the later scientists were Verne readers and modelled the Apollo after Verne's design?). In any case, Radio France Culture asked Geir Jenssen, aka Biosphere, to use their archival source material to compose a piece and Geir choose the Verne story to set to music. The travel starts with a twenty some minute intro, that lifts you up and then the journey starts. It might be no surprise that this deep ambient with capital 'D' and capital 'A'. Very low end bass sounds and high end pitched sounds pushed to the back, this is the ideal music to listen on headphones at night, on you balcony, watching the stars. It's both the sound of a spacecraft as well as the sound of weightless space. Ambient music is maybe not at a point anymore where really exciting new stuff happens, and in that respect the new Biosphere is no different, but Biosphere belongs to the very artists in the ambient music field who do a really good job throughout. [FdW]

Urban Magazine (Belgium):

Soms is het moeilijk te bepalen waarom je net dat ene album van een artiest 'geniaal' vindt en het andere dan weer niet. Het Londense platenlabel Touch brengt bijna tegelijkertijd een setje van drie albums uit van een stel artiesten, die in onze woordenschat zo goed als 'incontournable' zijn en toch hebben we het gevoel dat de albums niet opwegen tegen hun vorige werk. Wat doen we daaraan? De referentie voor het werk van de Noor Geir Jenssen of Biosphere blijft zijn ongeëvenaarde, glaciale meesterwerk 'Substrata', dat in 2001 in een geremasterde versie uitgebracht werd samen met de soundtrack 'The Man With A Movie Camera'. Da's sowieso een moeilijk te evenaren referentiepunt. De opvolger 'Shenzhou' uit 2002 was gebaseerd op klassieke composities van de uitvinder van de muzak Claude Debussy. Bijlange geen slecht album maar het kon nauwelijks tippen aan het ambient meesterwerk, dat eraan vooraf ging. De nieuwe cd 'Autour de la Lune' valt hetzelfde lot te beurt. Het album is de neerslag van een uitzending op Radio France en is gebaseerd op Jules Verne's visionaire novelle 'Autour de la Lune'. De functionele compositie van Biosphere is mooi opgedeeld in negen bewegingen. Er gebeurt vrij weinig opvallends op het album. Ladies & gentlemen, we are floating in space… Een rondje om de maan en dan terug. Jenssen zoekt het hier vooral in de lagere regionen van het klankenspectrum. Wat redt het album dan van de monotonie en de verveling? Het nogal Eno-achtige 'Translation' bijvoorbeeld, met zijn oneindige en immer wijzigende, elkaar overlappende loops. Het vervreemdende 'Modifié', waarin vervormde stemmen opduiken, en het gewichtloos rondzwevende 'Tombant'. [Peter Wullen]

Stylus (USA):

In a move that calls to mind Rick Wakeman’s Journey To The Centre Of The Earth (in spirit only, thankfully), Biosphere (Norwegian Geir Jenssen) finds inspiration for his fourth Touch release in Jules Verne’s De la Terre à la Lune (Earth To The Moon). Written in the 1860s, Verne’s prescient novel describes a trip undertaken by astronauts who launch from Florida, journey into space, and land in the Pacific Ocean upon their return. Jenssen’s choice of subject matter emerged circuitously, as Radio France Culture first commissioned him to create a piece to be premiered at the Le Festival de Radio France et Montpellier. Given access to Radio France’s audio archives, Jenssen then discovered an early 60s dramatization of Verne’s novel and, noting its potential, settled upon it as the basis for Autour de la Lune (Around The Moon), a seventy-four minute “symphony” of nine “movements”.

The mesmerizing epic “Translation” comes first. Above hypnotically looping cells that give the track a perpetual propulsiveness, Biosphere adds single elongated tones that modulate at a glacial pace and, consequently, a mood of mystery and portent gradually builds. Two-thirds of the way through, similarly stretched tones of high-pitched electronics appear, mirrored by deeper rumbles that are so soft they’re nearly subliminal. It’s a masterful exercise in controlled tension that Jenssen sustains over the full course of the track’s twenty-two minutes. At half its length, “Rotation” suggests the ship’s imminent plunge into deep space with distant rumbles, gentle bass throbs and glistening tones that gradually layer until they resemble dissonant string clusters. After these intense excursions, “Modifié”, a brief array of static-laden space ship transmissions, provides some welcome relief and contrast.

The conundrum posed by the work arrives with the fourth track “Vibratoire” and lasts for twenty minutes until the end of “Circulaire.” The material becomes increasingly skeletal and drone-like, suggesting that the ship is traveling through sonically desolate deep space. Quiet tones intermittently surface, just enough to retain some vestigial trace of life. An even deeper move into micro-sound transpires with “Déviation,” a ten-minute bass drone of subtle ebbs and flows. The softly vibrating hums and glacially panning treble whirrs of “Circulaire” announce the ship’s imminent exit from this cold expanse. Faint wisps of melody are then faintly audible in “Disparu,” perhaps suggesting the ship’s re-entry into earth’s atmosphere until “Tombant” ends the journey by reprising themes from “Translation.”

The conundrum in question concerns whether one’s assessment emphasizes the work’s conceptual or musical merits. On a conceptual level, Jenssen convincingly conveys the ship’s journey, but musically the trip into deep space is less enthralling. While he demonstrates admirable aural fidelity to the concept, ideally a more musically compelling evocation would have made a stronger impression. In short, the work’s core is one that invites intellectual appreciation but satisfies less on purely musical terms, as ideally the central section should deviate in style from the outer pieces yet remain as powerful. Having noted that weakness, Autour de la Lune is otherwise imaginative and original, a quintessential “headphones” work full of constantly mutating (if at times extremely subtle) streams of sound. [Ron Schepper]

Twoblock (USA):

Drone-based music is often not taken seriously, sometimes with the argument that it's not even music. Autour de la Lune is the perfect counter to that argument. It's the seventh album from Norwegian artist Biosphere, aka Geir Jenssen. Drawing samples from recordings made at the Mir space station and an early 1960's radio performance of Jules Verne's novel of the same name, Autour de la Lune was commissioned by Radio France Culture's Atelier de Création Radiophonique and the French Ministry of Culture to be aired in September 2003. After its initial broadcast, Biosphere continued work on the recording — which is now a sprawling, ambitious, 74-minute ambient drone piece, divided into nine movements. “Translation,” the first of these movements, starts out with two interpolating chords which seem to be full of microtonal harmonics, recalling the start of Wendy Carlos' Beauty in the Beast. As other higher pitched complementary drones appear over the initial one, you soon realize that what seems static is actually moving quite steadily. Things start pulsing by the four minute mark, each sound retelling, or 'translating' the last. Loops start making themselves known to stunning effect. As the track fades into the ether, sharp, cutting synth notes with otherworldly bleeps and bloops join in. Twenty-two minutes have passed quite quickly, and not once is it boring or irritating. Though not the grand statement of “Translation,” the second movement “Rotation” is characterized by bell-like tones and a thundering bass drone which pulls down the abundant upper-register noise like an undertow. As yet (32:51), the samples which inspired the work haven't surfaced. The third track, “Modifié,” introduces them, albeit buried and distorted beyond intelligability. The aptly titled “Vibratoire” requires a powerful sub-woofer to appreciate the deep bass tones that comprise this track. The next few tracks, though no less beautiful, are not nearly as interesting. Moving forward through sub-harmonic swirling drones and dog-whistle pitches contrasted against a steady rumble, and approaching the 60-minute mark, you may find yourself less engaged (perhaps asleep). Variety returns in “Disparu,” which forgoes the incessant rolling thunder for an open, airy atmosphere, pleasantly spacey, even suggesting Tangerine Dream. “Inverse,” in contrast, is the sound of deep-space despair — weightless and alone in the black void, without any hope for rescue. The final track is a reprise of the first, bringing satisfying closure to an album which proves drone-based music can be composed and coherant, even if it does drag on too long.

Aquarius (USA):

This latest release from Norwegian sound artist Geir Jenssen is a much darker, and less rhythmic affair than past releases. Based on an early sixties' dramatisation of Jules Verne's De La Terre A La Lune, Jennsen has sampled bits of dialogue, sounds from the MIR space station, and assorted other atmospheric detritus, incorporating them into his original sounds, resulting in an expansive nine part, minimal soundscape, that is darker and creepier than the subject matter would suggest. The record starts off quite tranquil, dreamy and somnambulent, simple melodies smeared into washes of minimal shimmer, but the sound rapidly takes on a quite ominous hue, sinister and subtly nightmarish, with buzzing sinewaves and threatening rumbles. This ominous drone forms the basis of the entire record, occasionally shifting into fuzzy shortwave interference, mysterious transmissions from the ether, buried rhythms, and subtle variations on Biosphere's glacially shifting low end. This actually sounds like it would be perfect horror movie music, haunting and tense, pregnant with the possibility of the sustained minor key drones erupting into something much more terrifying. But the fact that it never does only makes it that much more effective.

The Wire (UK):

Biosphere, aka Norwegian Geir Jenssen, was commissioned by Radio France Culture to create a piece for Le Festival de Radio France et Montpellier. On acceptance, he was given duplicate keys to the station's archive. Refusing to be driven insane by its riches, Jenssen instead homed in on an early 1960s dramatisation of Jules Verne's De Al Terre A La Lune, a prescient tale of manned moon flight, arcing from Florida to a splashdown in the Pacific. As a starting point for his nine-part 'symphony', Jenssen spliced samples of its dialogue next to sounds from the MIR space station. Autour de la Lune is a continuation, building on and refining the original commission. The quaintly microbial, blue hued images of fellow Norwegian Tor-Magnus Lundeby's cover painting hint at the music within. Jenssen clearly has a nostalgic glow for the 1950s and 60s electroacoustic palette, which could sound primitive and cosmic at once.

The corporeal presence of the opening "Translation" is subsequently echoed by its increasingly dispersed successors. A repeated fanfare makes its subtle point, shaped out of Gothic organ matter that undulates monotonously against a growing background hum. Its steady pulse acts as a lengthy scene setter, with "Rotation" beginning the tendency for ghostliness that dominates the middle section. Bass physicality mixes with a silvery treble chirruping, turning into oscillating radio interference during "Modifié". Jenssen is working with the very essence of minimalism, his "Deviation" hanging heavy like humidity just before the storm. The thunder never breaks. "Circulaire" features a different hum, a click heralding its shift, leading to an almost imperceptible intensification.Another click and it draws back. Jenssen has created a field where and microscopic change has an exaggerated impact on the stasis. "Disparu" returns to the character of "Translation", but with fainter emphasis. By its end, it's almost not there. "Inverse" brings back the low shudder, then the closing "Tombant" reprises the earlier tonal contrast, but adds a third layer of trebly worming. Like a failing deathbed victim, these movements parade at the lowest point of awareness. Certain car or kitchen speakers will render this disc meaningless, but when heard clean, it's a mesmerising experience. On Autour de la Lune, Biosphere successfully forces an unnatural interest in vestigial occurrences. [Martin Longley]

PitchFork Media (USA):

Biosphere's Geir Jenssen knows hot from cold. Residing as he does near the Arctic Circle in Norway, Jenssen understands the psychological implications of a sun that, like a lamented deadbeat parent, routinely disappears for months at a time, and the absence of that essential lifeforce takes an inevitable emotional toll that informs Jenssen's art. It's tempting to say that Biosphere's bleak music sounds as it does for the same reason countries of Norway's approximate latitude make the world's best Vodka. But then Jenssen's other great passion is mountaineering (he has climbed the 26,906 foot Himalayan peak Cho Oyu without oxygen), suggesting a kernel of inspired humanity frozen in the tundra. The vacuum of space gets pretty close to absolute zero, cold's recognized ideal, so it makes sense that the conceptually minded Jenssen sets albums there. His latest trip into the beyond started when French radio commissioned Jenssen to create a piece using their archives. He selected sounds from a radio dramatization of Jules Verne's space travel story De la Terre à la Lune ("From the Earth to the Moon") and pulled additional material from recordings made at the MIR space station, then combined the fragments with his own new music. The result is Autour de la Lune, a single 74-minute piece in nine movements.

The samples are used sparingly throughout Autour de la Lune, and the beat-driven side of Biosphere is completely absent. Mostly, the record is a showcase for long and impossibly deep drones. The 21-minute opener "Translation" is an exception here, as a cluster of midrange notes that braid to form a definite melody. Rather than referencing found sound or environmental recordings, "Translation" seems inspired by film music, with tense throbs and horn-like synth lines that suggest captured images of a spacecraft leisurely moving in front of stars. The scene is set. The following "Rotation" does away with the fanfare to send faint pings and bass swells into the blackness, but the exceptional "Modifié" is where the record starts to get creepy. Jenssen processes human voices - hard to tell if they're from the radio broadcast or MIR cosmonauts - in a way that merges them completely with the electrical noise that carries them. They sound lost and unreachable, the last little whimpers of a doomed crew about to be swallowed by the event horizon. And yet, they're singing, kind of. We follow them into darkness with the next few tracks, which consist of little more than the most punishing bass tones I've ever heard on a CD. On "Déviation", sounds hover at the bottom end of human audibility, causing all but the heartiest subwoofers to sound like an open newspaper flapping in a strong wind. I've approached this bass from three different sources (two sets of headphones and my living room speakers), and I can only guess the genuine sound through triangulation. Strange things happen when I listen to "Circulaire" loud on headphones; the low end is total and all encompassing, but with the kind of throb that happens when you can hear your heart beating in your ears. The contrast means that the ambient sounds wherever I happen to be create "notes" in between the pulses. Because it seems so grounded in biology, I can't help but imagine this middle section as a musical approximation of the ambience in a suit during a spacewalk, where you hear nothing but your own body. If that's so, "Tombant" is accompaniment to the final drift back into the docking hatch, as it reprises the textures and symphonic swell of the opening "Translation".

Autour de la Lune is an excellent record that is nearly victimized by its awesome conceptual success. It offers such a compelling and internally complete idea of interstellar space - moods, textures, samples, cover art, all of it - that it loses some flexibility when it comes to individual interpretation. Still, Jenssen gotten exactly where he wanted to go. Upon reaching the icy mountain peak, he kept climbing into the stars. [Mark Richardson]

Pro 7 (Germany):

Der Norweger Geir Jenssen zeichnet sich für unterkühlte aber alles andere als emotionslose Soundscapes verantwortlich. In der Electronica-Szene wurde er neben Künstlern wie Aphex Twin und Future Sound Of London groß. Von Kunst und Kommerz gefördert – er komponiert Soundtracks für Spielfilme und Werbeclips wie etwa von Levis – emanzipierte sich Biosphere von Anfang an von zu offensichtlichen Spielarten des Genres und konzentrierte sich auf tiefgründige Kompositionen, die Form und Stimmung gleichberechtigt behandeln. War sein letztes Album noch eine Hommage an Claude Debussy, so gilt sein aktuelles Augenmerk einem anderen Franzosen: Jules Vernes "Reise zum Mond" erfährt einen großartigen Soundtrack, der an Qualität und Inhalt an Brian Eno's Klassiker "Apollo" gemahnt. Sphärische Klänge machen die imaginäre Mondreise zum intensiven Erlebnis!

Earplug (USA):

In the 19th century, Jules Verne penned the eerily prophetic De la Terre à la Lune, which described a manned space flight launching from Florida and splashing down in the Pacific Ocean. Having been granted access to a '60s audio dramatization of the piece from Radio France's archives, Biosphere, aka Geir Jenssen, combined the material with his own productions and added samples sourced from the Mir space station. The result can most closely be compared to Brian Eno and Harold Budd's homage to the space age, Apollo. Biosphere's Autour de la Lune is a nine-movement symphony characterized by soft, expansive ambient tones and an occasionally menacing and otherworldly feel. Undoubtedly abstract by virtue of the subject matter and source material, the record conjures the vastness of space without resorting to cliche. [CJN]

VITAL (The Netherlands):

As a young man I had children versions of some of the Jules Verne books and one of them was the journey to the moon story. a beautiful hardcover book with original etchings as far as I remember. As a young man I liked learning about our solar system and the planets and so I liked this particular Verne story a lot, which is a true visionairy one (or maybe the later scientists were Verne readers and modelled the Apollo after Verne's design?). In any case, Radio France Culture asked Geir Jenssen, aka Biosphere, to use their archival source material to compose a piece and Geir choose the Verne story to set to music. The travel starts with a twenty some minute intro, that lifts you up and then the journey starts. It might be no surprise that this deep ambient with capital 'D' and capital 'A'. Very low end bass sounds and high end pitched sounds pushed to the back, this is the ideal music to listen on headphones at night, on you balcony, watching the stars. It's both the sound of a spacecraft aswell as the sound of weightless space. Ambient music is maybe not at a point anymore where really exciting new stuff happens, and in that respect the new Biosphere is no different, but Biosphere belongs to the very artists in the ambient music field who do a really good job - throughout. (FdW)

almostcool (USA):

Although I haven't reviewed a Biosphere release since the long-ago Substrata (which has subsequently been re-released as well), I've kept tabs on Geir Jenssen and his output as Biosphere over the past several years. With his wide body of work, he's worked his way up my list as one of the most consistent and creative artists working in the genre of ambient electronic music. He's collaborated with both Deathprod (reworking Arne Nordheim) and HIA (on two separate releases), and has still managed to release albums at a fairly steady rate.

Autour De La Lune is the newest effort from Biosphere and it's a release of massive proportions. 9 tracks clock in at almost 75 minutes and find Jenssen again moving in a different direction in terms of his sound. While some artists keep adding more layers to their palette, it seems that Biosphere is intent on slowly peeling back pieces of sound to reveal what's underneath. His masterful Shenzou was a stripped-down reworking of classical music that wass subtle and beautiful (and probably my favorite work of his), while this newest effort finds him at an even more minimal level.

Originally developed for a Radio France broadcast, the album is a mixture of sampled dialogue from an old Jules Verne (De La Terre A La Lune) broadcast, sounds recorded on the MIR space station, and the incorporation of original compositions. The opening track of "Translation" sets the stage at nearly 22 minutes, a super slowly-evolving piece that ripples sheets of low-end under high-end tones that palpitate with a slowly-increasing intensity before edging off again. Bits of broken dialogue slowly creep into following tracks while the same sort of sound palette again dominates. "Rotation" finds ultra-deep bass throbbing in the background while pinging tones bounce like transmissions from another system.

Listening to the release, it's hard not to imagine the exploration of space. It's a bit stark and austere, and while there is a touch of human element (the fragmented spoken samples), Autour De La Lune feels more like something you'd hear as your malfunctioning spacecraft slowly drifted out of the range of communications and into a great unknown void. In places it's downright creepy and in others it's oddly soothing, but this is definitely a different release for Jenssen. With only a very few subtle melodies creeping in (most notibly on the beautiful "Disparu"), this is a heady release that could easily be the soundtrack for either stargazing or an isolation tank. Don't listen to this one on crummy speakers, because you simply won't get the full effect. Team it up with Eno's Apollo and Into Forever by Manual & Icebreaker International for almost 3 hours of deep space listening.

IDJ (UK):

August sees the release of the sixth album from veteran ambient explorer Geir Jenssen, better known as Biosphere. 'Autour De La Lune' is constructed from an adaptation of a Jules Verne story broadcast by Radio France in the 1960s and is, to paraphrase Jenssen's earlier work, like listening to radio waves from space.

Brainwashed (USA):

Geir Jenssen lives in a different world. From his Artic Circle perch the man called Biosphere is building a body of work as iconoclastic as Aphex Twin, with as much eerie remove and accidental influence. Albums like Patashnik and Substrata are landmarks in ambient music not because they spawned a million rip-offs but because they work within a recognizable stylistic blueprint to create absolutely alien music, threatening total immersion to even the most cautious of "background" listeners. Jenssen's last, 2002's Shenzhou found him treading further towards alienating extremes, something like a pitch-black homage to Debussy, with orchestra samples stretched thin and opaque across an ocean of icy, crevice-filled ambience (in other words, what we all wished Drukqs had been). Autour, commissioned by French radio last year, not only rejects anything close to a wide "radio" audience, but it is by far the most trying Biosphere release thus far, with Jenssen moving past the beat-less transparencies begun with Substrata and into a harsh meditation on deep-space, a 74-minute confined drift that begins well into the air-less upper regions and does not conclude until positioned hopelessly within a dimensionless dump-off on the darker side of some heavenly body. Occupying a third of the disc's length, the opening "Translation" acts like the final kiss-off to Earth and the earthen sounds that often find a place in Biosphere music. A rebus of plastic tones, entwined with enough care to erase all human touch, becomes a sky-like ceiling with which groaning engine sounds and whining drones struggle in a pitiless slipping, past the threshold and into the heart of Autour. Apart from a track or two based around a few distorted samples from a 60s radio dramatization of Jules Verne's De la Terre à la Lune (the "focus" of the 2003 commission) and actual recordings of MIR astronauts, the majority of the disc develops a vacuous, unsettling atmosphere made up of seriously subsonic bass frequencies and shrill, synthetic tones dividing and encasing the deliberate arcs and hidden textures of each of the nine "movements." By the sixth track, "Circulaire," the trip has arrived at a false ending of sorts, an off-putting climax where the piece grounds out to two dissenting sounds, one a near-inaudible below-bass pulse and the other the sinister calm of a solid flatline. From this remote place, more Onkyo than Eno, Jenssen really has nowhere to drift except slowly back towards the beginning, to the lush plasticities of "Trombant," almost coming full circle on the opening track but stopping short, allowing melody and lush texture enough footing only to remind us of what has been left behind. Melodies emerge, like the aimless cosmonaut voice samples, as if beamed from a great distance, light years into the black, like ghosts of a human presence long since abandoned. Autour is not easy listening, and if it doesn't stand as the most returnable place in the Biosphere catalog, it's only because Jenssen has never sounded so remote and thoroughly haunting. [Andrew Culler]

www.kwadratuur.de (The Netherlands):

De Noor Geir Jenssen heeft altijd al een eigen manier gehad om zijn muzikaal verhaal te vertellen. Zo’n 13 jaar geleden kwam hij met trance en zogenaamde “intelligent techno” op de proppen, later werd dat melodieuze ambient en nog later dromerige drones en soundscapes. Op zijn achtste volwaardige plaat (onder de naam Biosphere) lijkt deze trend zich verder te zetten. In opdracht van Radio France is de man met analoog geluidsmateriaal uit de jaren ’60 (gebaseerd op het visionaire schrijfwerk van Jules Verne) en opnamen uit het ruimtestation MIR aan de slag gegaan. De negen “mouvements” die op deze plaat worden voorgeschoteld, zijn minimalistische geluidsimpressies en klankschilderingen die wel toon, maar nauwelijks ritme bevatten. Eindeloze loops die geleidelijk aan vervormen, wegdraaien of van kleurpatroon wijzigen zijn zowat de muzikale basis van deze ultimate ambient plaat. Veelal aangevuld met geruis, gekraak of gepiep van oude, analoge elektronica zorgt Biosphere op deze manier voor een vrij monotoon en minimalistisch landschap dat vooral steunt op traagheid en soberheid. Bij momenten geeft een ver weggetrokken, hypnotiserende bastoon een haast onmerkbare cadans aan. Zo bevatten zowel het openingsnummer als de afsluiter een diep grollende en loodzware basloop die als een wentelende spoel de muziek op een machinale manier laat doordraven. Het lome, wederkerende aspect hiervan mist zeker zijn verdovend effect niet. Holle orgelklanken, een mysterieuze ruis of hoge pieptonen zorgen voor een erg gelaten gevoel. Zo zorgt Biosphere voor een ruimtelijke klankreis die negen verschillende facetten benadert, maar telkens eindeloos diep is uitgehold. Dromerige tonen monden uit in fluitende, nogal ongemakkelijke frequenties en de luisteraar moet leren leven met een beperking aan muzikale informatie. “Less is more”. Bevreemding en mysterie zijn de rode draad doorheen deze plaat. Aan de verbeelding wordt dus veel over gelaten. Deze cd blijft boeien met zijn subtiel wegdraaiende klanken of op- en neerdeinende geluidsgolven. Zo zijn in de verte van ‘Modifié’ zelfs vage, gezongen radiogolven te bespeuren (vanuit MIR?), terwijl ‘Circulaire’ zo’n staaltje is van uiterst holle, haast onbeschrijflijk ijle, openbloeiende en dichtklappende klanken. Een beetje een buitenbeentje is de verheerlijkte verademing van het echoënde ‘Disparu’ dat met 2 minuten aan hoge klanken een luchtige pauze verschaft tussen de soms diep grollende en gestoorde muziek op deze boeiende plaat. Homogeen, minimaal en afwisselend … laat dat de adjectieven zijn die dit geweldige eindresultaat kaderen. De opdracht voor deze plaat was nogal vreemd. Het resultaat is er naar. Biosphere heeft zichzelf, in zijn zoektocht naar muzikale, elektronische perfectie wederom overtroffen. Gelieve de hoofdtelefoon op te zetten en klaar te maken voor de reis … autour de la lune. [Johan Giglot]

His Voice (Czechia):

Poslech obou recenzovaných alb z britské stáje Touch vyžaduje schopnost oprostit se od každodenního shonu a zcela se zastavit, nebo? obsahují opravdu velice pozvolna vyvíjející se hudební nápl?, v níž hrají nemalou roli hranice slyšitelnosti i oby?ejné (ale pro mnohé také dosti vzácné) ticho. Pro oba hudebníky jsou tyto novinky jejich z?ejm? v?bec nejpoklidn?jšími pracemi (nutnost kvalitní zvukové aparatury a izolace od okolí), v charakteru zpracování a zvukovém rejst?íku již však mezi nimi mnoho sty?ných ploch nenajdeme.
V Sydney narozený Oren Ambarchi pokra?uje v experimentování se zvukem kytar – i když na desce hraje i na bicí, klavír nebo hammondky – a p?edevším pak v obsesi jednotlivými tóny. Ambarchi zcela upouští od ‚logické‘ snahy o tvorbu souvislých melodií a namísto toho se no?í do fascinujícího sv?ta barev, délek a intenzity tón?, tedy t?ch nejzákladn?jších stavebních kamen?. Každému brnknutí rád ponechává dostatek prostoru a ?asu a poslucha?i tak nabízí p?íležitost dosyta vnímat jejich chv?ní a r?zné tvá?e. Tóny se zvolna zaplétají do smy?ek a v duchu minimalistického p?ístupu jsou kladeny do n?kolika málo vrstev, díky ?emuž se jednak zachovává absolutní transparentnost struktury skladeb a jednak vznikají plnohodnotné hudební motivy – koneckonc? tento jasn? sledovatelný proces p?em?ny shluku tón? ve smysluplný celek pat?í k nejúchvatn?jším rys?m nahrávky. Minimum zvukových zdroj? s sebou nese riziko šlápnutí vedle, Ambarchi ovšem vybírá umn? a ke zm?nám – a? obvykle velmi jemným – p?istupuje d?íve než zavládne p?ílišná rozvlá?nost (snad jen s výjimkou záv?re?né dvacetiminutové Stars Aligned, Webs Spun, jejíž efekt se p?i nedostate?ném soust?ed?ní blíží prášku na spaní). Za nejzajímav?jší po?in asi m?žeme ozna?it zvukov? nejpln?jší a zárove? nejbarevn?jší, post-rockem zaván?jící kus Remedios The Beauty, v n?mž se úvodní milá cvakavá smy?ka zni?ehonic propadne, tempo se zpomalí a k základu se postupn? pomalu p?idají nejen dlouho zn?jící zvonky, ale posléze i smy?ce (Veren Grigorov a Peter Hollo), klavír a lehké jazzové bicí a perkuse.
Zatímco Ambarchiho desku provází d?myslná preciznost, d?raz na detail, akustické teplo a k?iš?álová ?istota zvuk?, zkušený norský bard Geir Jenssen (Biosphere) vše utápí v nejspodn?jších patrech. Po?átky Autour de la Lune nutno hledat v archivu Radio France, kde Geir objevil dramatizaci románu Julese Verna Cesta na m?síc ze 60. let. Uchvácen faktem, že skute?né lety Ameri?an? na náš p?irozený satelit se z velké ?ásti odehrály tak, jak o nich v 19. století fantazíroval Verne, se rozhodl toto album tentokrát nezam??it na jeho polární domovinu, ale tam nahoru, do vesmíru. Použil ?ásti zmín?né dramatizace a zvuky nahrané na orbitální stanici Mir a s p?ídavkem vlastního zvukového materiálu vytvo?il vskutku ‚vet?elecky‘ tajemný opus o devíti ?ástech. Naprostá v?tšina d?ní na desce, kterého popravd? není mnoho, se odehrává v tichých basových rovinách atakujících limity lidského ucha i b?žných reproduktorových sestav, p?i?emž za?átek a konec alba pat?í pro Biosphere typi?t?jším kus?m s výrazn?jšími zasmy?kovanými motivy. Jedná se o opravdu temnou ambientní procházku neznámem a podv?domý/pov?domý pocit neklidu, nervozity a strachu se dostavuje spolehliv?. Jenssen zde p?edstavuje svou nejexperimentáln?jší a prozatím nejmén? p?ístupnou tvá?, hladina p?esv?d?ivosti a smysluplnosti však místy kolísá. [Hynek Dedecius]

indiepoprock (France)

Touch est un label réputé pour la constante qualité de ses productions, et l'extrême finesse sonore de celles ci. Pas étonnant, donc, d'y retrouver le norvégien Geir Jenssen AKA Biosphère, dans le catalogue...

Véritable figure de proue de la scène électronique de son pays, Biosphère nous enchante les oreilles depuis maintenant presque deux décennies et six albums... Celui dont il est question ici, "Autour De La Lune", fut réalisé suite à une commande pour Radio France, à l'occasion de laquelle l'artiste eut accès aux archives de la radio française.

Le choix de Biosphère s'est porté sur une version radiophonique du célèbre "De la Terre à la Lune", de Jules Verne, datant du début des années soixante. Le disque que voici fut réalisé à partir de samples de l'émission en question ainsi que de sons enregistrés à bord de la station MIR (!!!), le tout étant ensuite incorporé aux compositions du norvégien.

Si tout cela peut sonner quelque peu élitiste, voire cliché (ie : le thème de l'espace), il serait à mon avis dommage de ne pas apporter à ce disque l’écoute attentive qu’il mérite. D'une précision sonore microscopique et d'une densité extrême, cet album pour le moins digne d'intérêt ne se laisse bien évidemment pas apprivoiser facilement...

Souvent amélodique et arythmique, la musique ambiant d'"Autour De La Lune" s'attarde principalement sur la texture sonore en elle-même. Par conséquent, les rythmes et mélodies de ce disques, aussi rares et effacés soient ils, n'en sont que plus remarquables, et, serai-je tenté de dire... appréciables.

Bref, voici un voyage hors du temps dont les amateurs de musique instrumentale et/ou minimaliste auraient tort de se priver... [Jul]

echoes (Germany):

"Das Schweigen des unendlichen Alls erfüllt mich mit Schrecken." – Blaise Pascal

Bei ‚Autour de la Lune’ handelt es sich ursprünglich um eine Auftragsarbeit für Radio France, in deren Rahmen Geir Jensen, der seit zwölf Jahren unter dem Pseudonym Biosphere Musik macht, der Zugang zu den Archiven des besagten Rundfunksenders im Allgemeinen und zu einem in den sechziger Jahren nach dem Roman „De la Terre à la Lune“ (Von der Erde zum Mond), 1865 – mehr als hundert Jahre vor der ersten Mondlandung – visionär erdacht und niedergeschrieben von Jules Verne, produzierten Hörspiel im Speziellen ermöglicht wurde. Teile aus dieser Vertonung wurden extrahiert und dürften insbesondere im ersten Track, einem 22minütigen, episch angelegten Auftakt Verwendung gefunden haben. Und nach diesem Auftakt wird es dann sehr still.
Still nicht im Sinne einer Absenz von Tönen. Eher ist es ein Fehlen von Dynamik und (herkömmlicher) Dramaturgie, ein sich in Auflösung befindlicher Zeitbegriff. Die Stücke des Albums entwickeln in ihrem entrückten Minimalismus eine seltsame Geschlossenheit, Einsamkeit, Schwerelosigkeit. Die Musik, bar jeder greifbaren Struktur oder Melodie, wird selbst zum Raum, zum Bezugspunkt, zum Koordinatensystem, das sich letztlich in seiner puren Existenz selbst genügt.
Konstant schälen sich die dunklen, in Zeitlupe mäandernden Bassdrones aus den unhörbaren Tiefen des Infraschall, oft begleitet von glasklaren, atonal anmutenden Obertönen, Sprachfetzen (angeblich aus der Raumstation Mir) oder atmosphärisch-symphonischen Keyboardflächen. ‚Autour de la Lune’ lotet die Grenzen der Wahrnehmung aus, auch wenn angesichts der Perfektion und Schlüssigkeit der einzelnen Komponenten des Albums – Covergestaltung, Tracktitel, der allgegenwärtige Bezug zum Weltraum und natürlich die Musik selbst – Konnotationen vorweggenommen bleiben (können) und der Interpretationsspielraum eingeengt erscheint. [Tobias Bolt]

TIJD (Belgium):

Geir Jenssen of Biosphere is Noorwegens bekendste elektronische componist. In een carrière van haast twintig jaar maakte hij een boemerangbeweging van ambient over techno- en subgenres naar ambient. Soms verlaat Jenssen verlaat het zuivere auditieve terrein om zich aan installaties of soundtracks te wagen. Een tweetal jaar geleden vroeg Radio France Culture hem voor een compositie. Aan de oorsprong van zijn werk lag een grasduinen door de archieven van Radio France. Daar viel zijn oor op een radiodramatisering uit de vroege jaren zestig van Jules Vernes visionaire science-fictionklassieker ‘De la Terre à la Lune’. Jenssen samplede minuscule deeltjes van de dialogen en koppelde die aan opnames uit het ruimtestation MIR en aan zijn eigen materiaal. Biosphere’s 74 minuten durende ‘Autour de la lune’ ging vorige zomer in première op ‘Le Festival de Radio France’ in Montpellier en is voor cd-uitgave naar negen bewegingen herschreven. Het album beschrijft effectief een ruimtereis. De eerste tracks ‘Translation’ en ‘Rotation’ vangen aan met stijgende tonen die in ‘Vibratoire’ en ‘Déviation’ muteren tot een luchtledige gewichtsloosheid. En naar het einde van het stuk buigen de tonen weer naar beneden. Het karige palet van ‘Autour de la lune’ herinnert sterk aan Brian Eno. Biosphere verrast dan ook niet echt met deze plaat. Wel handhaaft hij zijn positie als belangrijke Noor. [Ive Stevenheydens]

musik.terror (Germany):

Die asiatischen Einflüsse, die man aus „Shenzhou“, BIOSPHEREs letzter Veröffentlichung, heraushören konnte, waren offensichtlich mehr als nur schnöde Klangquellen – da steckte eine ganze Philosophie dahinter. Es hat nämlich schon etwas von einer Zen-Übung, was Geir Jenssen hier versucht: Hörbar zu bleiben mit kaum Hörbarem, Bewegung zu erzeugen mit dem in sich Ruhenden.

Als Auftragsarbeit für das französische Radio und unter der Obhut eines Ministeriums entstanden, erwartet man selbstverständlich ohnehin nicht gerade das Proletenhaft-Banale, sogar wenn das Material auf einem Jules Verne-Hörspiel basiert. Trotzdem ist „Autour de la lune“ beinahe schon schockierend leise und statisch. Das einleitende „Translation“ zieht den Hörer mit einer zweitönigen Melodie über einem unstetem Rhythmusgeflecht gleich ganze zwanzig Minuten in seinen Bann und ist die einzige - aufregende - Ausnahme auf dem Album: Während auf dem Notenpapier schier gar nicht passiert, verdichtet sich die Atmosphäre zusehends, bis man zitternd den Hemdkragen lockert. Schillernd wie Polareis in der Wintersonne, flirrend wie ein Komet am klaren Nachthimmel. Bei „Modifie“ leuchtet ein altes Röhrenradio einsam im gräulich-schwarzen Hotelzimmer und erweisen sich die Sequenzen zwischen den Frequenzen abwechselnd als merkwürdig faszinierend und faszinierend merkwürdig. Ansonsten hat man gerade etwas zu oft das Gefühl, den Atem anhalten zu müssen. Das Material ähnelt regelmäßig den schwer schwebenden und majestätisch-monolithischen Soundteppichen der LEFTFIELD-Alben, ohne deren Auflösung, ohne die Befreiung durch den Beat. So gespenstisch schön so manche Stelle sein mag, so vage bleibt sie meistens auch – und das ist leider nicht immer ein Kompliment. „Vibratoire“ mit seinen schummrig schwingenden Flächen und „Disparu“ als auf den Zehen trapsende Miniatur verschwinden fast komplett unter der Aufmerksamkeitsschwelle des Ohrs.

Mit mehr als 70 Minuten ist die Angelegenheit ohnehin mal wieder zu viel des Ganzen und des Guten ohnehin – und beinahe unerträglich lang. In kleinen Dosen zu einem genommen wirkt „Autour de la lune“ allerdings sehr verlockend. So wird man sich wohl eher immer mal wieder eine Rosine aus diesem mysteriös flüsternden Kuchen picken, statt die köstliche Zuckermasse auf einmal zu verspeisen. [tocafi]

Biosphere "Shenzou" reviews

B I G C H I L L R E C O R D O F T H E W E E K

Biosphere's latest recording makes for a new twist in a career which could never be described as comfortable and formulaic: ten of the twelve tracks on this disc are based on the orchestral works of the French composer Claude Debussy. This is not the first time that Debussy and electronica have met, Japanese musician and writer Isao Tomita brought forth moog-fest 'Snowflakes Are Dancing' in the seventies and acknowledged the same musical inspiration. The long winter in Tromso has resulted in another signal work for Geir Jenssen's catalogue, one which grows steadily and insistently on the listener until its sonorities and synaesthetics lock you into an immersive soundscape. The music has lost none of its diaphanous drift and is at once evocative of both location and atmosphere. It might be a cliché?, but a sense of place has always been present in the work of Biosphere. Once again, 'Shenzho'' somehow manages to construct a permafrosted arctic landscape yet imbue it with warmth, beauty and soul. Biosphere's most recent outings on 'Substrata', and 'Cirqu'' (a geomorpholigical term for a natural amphitheatre in the ice), used the sounds of cracking sheet-ice and fizzing wood stoves. Jenssen's approach has always been about sound sculpting and collage; he creates a tonal palette from natural and synthetic sources. Here on 'Shenzhou' the crackle comes from a slab of Decca Red Label Classics vinyl as the muted woodwinds, strings and brass from Debussy's various tone poems circle and twist themselves around Biosphere's sonic tectonic plates. Debussy's harmonic improvisation paved the way for the major musical upheavals of the 20th century. Perhaps best recognised for the wonderful sound poem 'La Mer', he became known as the Impressionist's composer. Impressionist painting typically included minute areas of detail which morphed into incredible colourfields when the whole of the canvas was viewed. Similarly, Debussy used the orchestra as a pulsing, living whole, the featured instrumentation adding points of colour in flashes and glints, with the entire work eventually emerging from the synergy between its component parts. This CD shifts and drifts and reveals itself as a thing of great depth and power. Beguilingly simple at first, it manages to insinuate itself into your life and take hold of your circuits. Biosphere has moved 'ambient music' to a different place and it's a wonderful thing to go along with the trip. 'Shenzhou' is an important example of two genres of music colliding, colluding and making perfect sense. It is a beautiful and searching work which should be owned by anyone who still wants to meditate and marvel with music. Buy it, get the cans upside your head, close your eyes, relax and float off downstream. AJ

An undoubted latter day ambient maestro Geir Jenssen new Biosphere LP takes him further into masterly ambient territories. Based on the work of Debussy, Shenzou, as with much of Jenssen's work invites favourable comparisons with both Eno and Tomita. His ability to create tension and dynamism with the most sparse of structures and beatless excursions is superb. Ignore those TV ads, this is the real chill out. (Teletext- Leftfield Column - 31.5.02)

ALBUM OF THE WEEK, 7 Mag (UK):

Since the release of "Patashnik", on the R&S offshoot Apollo, in 1994, plenty of artists have tried, but none have come close, to making such overwhelming ambient music, as Norway's Geir Jenssen, alias Biosphere. With "Shenzou" he's made another classic, pushing the bounderies further, with orchestral like compositions, layering electronic waves, taking the listener to pastures new, as you gently drift on a sea of mixed emotions. With titles such as "Spindrift", "Heatleak", "Twooceanplateau" & "Thermalmotion", this is definitely not the hard sell package tour, of chill out Ibiza comps, "Shenzhou" is much much more than that, it's the open mindedness & isolation of Biosphere, living inside the Artic Circle. [Dean Thatcher]

The Milk Factory (Norway):

After ten years of recording as Biopshere, Tromso born Geir Jenssen has firmly established himself at the forefront of experimental ambient music. Although his early releases still bore the marks of dance music, his music has now evolved towards more atmospheric structures, where beats are scarce and environmental sounds are essential. Patashnik, his second album, was already shaping what would become the Biosphere sound, but it is not until his third opus, the seminal Substrata, originally released on All Saints Records in 1997 and recently reissued by Touch as a double album, that Jenssen really started exploring the immense possibilities of ambient music the way Brian Eno did in the eighties with his Ambient series. He now comes back after two years of silence with a new album, almost entirely based on orchestral works by French classical composer Claude Debussy. One of the most important French composers of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Claude Debussy was very often associated with the impressionist movement and symbolist writers, and his non-conformist tonal structures still inspire many musicians. Probably better known for his orchestral works, including Prélude A l'Aprés-midi D'Un Faune and La Mer, Debussy was very influenced by the work of Russian composers such as Borodin or Mussorgsky, and traces of eastern music can be found in a few of his compositions. Geir Jenssen experiments on Shenzhou with similar elements, weaving his distinctive near-beatless soundscapes around recurring patterns throughout, superposing them on Debussy's own orchestrations. The title track, which opens the album, slowly introduces the multiple elements of this work, reverently contrasting them to establish a perfect balance of impressions. These diverse components are echoed in turn in each track, placing them in different perspectives. Jenssen acts as an impressionist painter himself, applying little touches which, heard individually, do not equal to them heard in context, contributing to producing sonic effects and auditory illusions. If Houses On The Hill or Path Leading To The High Grass confront these warm soundscapes with isolationist percussions, the remaining tracks are entirely devoid of rhythmic structures, Jenssen relying instead on more subtle sound organisations to create movement. With this visionary record, Geir Jenssen proves once more that he is the most talented musician around able to create such beautiful and intense music out of arid sources. By associating himself with the musical genius that was Debussy, not only does he emulate his own work, but also give a whole new dimension to the work of the French composer. [5 Stars]

The Sheffield Telegraph (UK):

Chill-out music might have been last year's thing but Geir Jenssen from Tromso in Norway takes it on to a totally different level with beautiful, chilled-out ambient beats and textures that give his music a timeless quality. Ten of the tracks are based on fragments from the orchestral works of Claude Debussy. He would surely have approved. Jenssen's best since the amazing Cirque.

Muzik (UK):

Biosphere's Gier Jenssen is 'the daddy' of Norwegian electronica. But rather than beat you about the head he soothes you into submission with gentle orchestral sounds ('Shezou' is based on the works of Claude Debussy), ominous pagan muzak and deceptive simplicity. Like telling ghost stories in a remote and unfamiliar place, it's somehow scary and comforting. **** [Tom Mugridge]

Modern Dance (UK):

I always look forward to a new album by Geir Jenssen, because he was one of the original pioneers of the ambient scene. This release uses the orchestral work of Claude Debussy as a starting block and combines the sound texture in a most unusual way. There is a tendency to keep upping the volume, as it never really sounds loud enough. When the floor starts shaking in response to the bass notes, it is only then that you realise that your amplifier is dissipating a hell of a lot of watts. Not really music in the normal sense, as a beat, melodies and rhythms are not present, but the overall texture of the sound is stunning. He was born inside the Arctic Circle and his music exhibits an icy feel, yet any warmth generated is indeed extremely subtle. From the slow fade in of the opening bars of the title track to the marvellous finale, you won't find a much better ambient album to include in your collection. If I were to choose a highlight, the obvious track would be Ancient Campfire, where the crackling of a fire is looped to perform the basis of an exceptionally haunting theme. Sheer brilliance. [brooky]

Touching Extremes (net):

Geir Jenssen's treatments (in 10 of the 12 tracks of this magnificent CD he works on Debussy's samples) gave life to a soundscape that's ethereal and deep at the same time, always transcending to poetic imagination and bringing out auras of highly spiritual values. I can't find the words for "Shenzhou"'s gentle beauty; it's like observing a collection of pure crystals surrounded by a light fog or recollecting childhood memories while watching out of the window at late afternoon. You can't call this music "ambient" or something else, just listen silently and let your soul speak. I rarely find myself so touched and moved, but - during listening - I just had to turn to my wife and see her wide-open eyes to have a confirmation this is indeed a very special release. [MASSIMO RICCI]

Side Line (Belgium)

A new Biosphere is on the way The Norwegian master of ambient, Geir Jenssen, strives already back with a new full length of Biosphere entitled “Shenzhou”. This new masterpiece has been mainly based on the orchestral works of the French composer Claude Debussy. And this is what our main reviewed Deranged Psyche had to say about it: "The result is already a fascinating and unique voyage through the imaginary fields of our unconscious. The album remains quiet, but an icy and frightening blast runs through the compositions. This is a new essential album released on Touch."

Pro 7 [Germania]:

Biosphere Shenzou Verffentlichung: 03.06.2002 Nach Formeln und Erwartungshaltungen hat der Norweger Geir Jenssen nie gearbeitet, Biosphere blieb stets sein Projekt fŸr anspruchsvolle Elektronik-Kompositionen. Sein neues Album "Shenzou" bezieht sich auf den Komponisten Claude Debussy, beziehungsweise verwendet dessen Notenwerk als Basis für Biospheres Klangmanipulationen. Dies ist nicht das erste Mal, das neue Electronica auf Debussy trifft, - von Tomitas "Snowflakes Are Dancing" aus den 70ern, bis hin zu Art Of Noises Hommage "The Seduction Of Claude Debussy" haben sich moderne KŸnstler immer wieder inspirieren lassen. Vor einer Dekade fand sich Biosphere zwischen KŸnstlern wie Aphex Twin oder Orbital in den Regalen der Schallplattenfachgeschäfte wieder, schlie§lich verfeinerte man gemeinsam das Revolutionsmodell "Techno". Jedoch war es ein Kennzeichen der 90er, Str?mungen zu adaptieren und zu assimilieren: die Jeansmarke Levis verpflichtete das StŸck "Novelty Waves" von Biosphere fŸr einen Werbespot, und auf einmal fand sich der gestern noch im Underground gehandelte KŸnstler in den europ?ischen Verkaufscharts wieder. Ein Wendepunkt fŸr Geir Jenssen. Schon die n?chste Ver?ffentlichung "Substrata" verzichtete weitgehend auf Dance-Rhythmen, respektive auf Rhythmik per se. Stattdessen eroberte Biosphere andere Felder. Was Brian Eno einst als "Ambient" auf die musikalische Landkarte brachte, sollte hier eine modernisierte Re-Definition erfahren. Klangr?ume wurden ge?ffnet, von denen man nicht ahnte das sie existieren, Sounds an die Grenzen der H?rschwellen vertieft, und emotionale Landschaften mit minimalen Mitteln gezeichnet, so dass die Vorl?uferalben "Cirque" und "Substrata 2" von Presse wie Musikliebhabern als moderne Klassiker gehandelt werden. "Shenzou" macht trotz aller innewohnenden Individualit?t keine Ausnahme und reiht sich an seine beide Vorg?nger. Statt der fŸr unsere H?rgewohnheiten bekannten Kl?nge zaubert Geir Jenssen neue T?ne aus den Tiefen seiner elektronischen Ger?te, die gleichsam schroff wie wundersch?n sein k?nnen. Zwar verletzt die Komposition nie das ?sthetische H?rempfinden, aber ist doch gerade Meilen von den Produkten des New-Age und der Esoterik entfernt, die mit gleichf?rmigem Sch?nklang gemeinhin nachhaltig langweilen. Auch ist man auf Distanz zu den Ÿblichen folkloristischen Klischees, wenngleich ein gewisser "nordischer" Hauch aus den Lautsprecherboxen zu flie§en scheint. Kurzum, das Album sucht nach intelligenten H?rern, die sich gerne mit Musik intensiv und ausdauernd auseinander setzen, und zweifelsohne wird der versprŸhte Charme des Albums ein solches Publikum einnehmen. Impressionismus, Purismus, Genie und Erneuerung, ein Jahrhundert nach Debussy!

Brainwashed.com (net)

This is Geir Jenssen's third Biosphere album in as many years for the UK's two decade strong Touch label. At first glance there appears to be several unrelated elements at play: the title is the name of a Chinese unmanned spacecraft, the track titles reference miscellaneous things, the digipack artwork is seemingly random photos (though typical for Touch) and inside it says that the first ten of the dozen tracks are based on the orchestral works of early 20th Century French impressionist composer Claude Debussy. Playing those ten tracks doesn't clarify the contradictions, but it does reveal a tightly focused continuum. Here Jenssen's arctic ambience is quite minimal and possibly darker and deeper than ever before. Low end currents and pink noise vapor trails create melodies and mysteries. Meanwhile, rhythmic bumps and looped strains of what I presume is Debussy orchestra are occasionally weaved in. The final two tracks are indeed different but also complementary to the Debussy inspired suite. Altogether, 'Shenzou' is austere and simply another eerily beautiful ambient escape courtesy of Biosphere and Touch. [Mark Weddle]

Boudisque Online (The Netherlands)

We schrijven het jaar 2202. De stad Tromso in Noorwegen is getroffen door een natuurramp. Het sneeuwt er continu, alle wegen zijn verdwenen onder een honderden kilometers lange ijsvlakte, de zon is al jaren niet meer door het dikke grijze wolkendek gekomen en alle inwoners hebben huis en haard moeten verlaten. Tenminste, op één na: de heer G. Jenssen. Het lukt hem om te overleven in zijn studio met veel blikvoer en zijn muziekinstrumenten. Met als enige uitzicht de grijs/witte sneeuw, produceert hij zeer donkere soundscapes waar je uiteraard niet echt vrolijk van wordt. Uit zijn collectie klassieke cd's sampelt hij Claude Debussy en vermengt dit met zijn eigen electronica. Dansen heeft de heer Jenssen ook geen zin meer in, dus beats zijn ver te zoeken. Zo donker en duister heeft muziek zelden geklonken en het is jammer dat dit soort prachtige muziek de studio van deze kluizenaar niet uitkomt. Tot zover de fictie, nu de realiteit: het is 2002. De nieuwe Biosphere is uit, 200 jaar te vroeg gemaakt. Fictie wordt werkelijkheid. Wat een cd...

The Wire (UK):

Geir Jenssen aka Biosphere often appears to need a creative cue, if not a concept, to kickstart an album. One inspiration for the glacial textures of his first set for Touch, Cirque (2000) was the story of the ill-fated Chris McCandless, who hitchhiked to Alaska in April 1992, skimped on is food supply, and was found dead four months later. Last year, Touch also reissue his 1997 quiet classic, Substrata, in a lavishly packaged, remastered and expanded version, which came out of a climbing trip he made in the Himalayas. But, far from the great outdoors, a French composer seeded his latest album, Shenzhou: the first ten tracks, confess the minimal sleevenotes, were inspired by the orchestral works of Claude Debussy. It's a testament to Jenssen that throughout the set Debussy's influence is always felt explicitly, even as it never threatens to overwhelm the production as a whole. The classical source material is frozen, sampled and looped, like an audio Polaroid, into short one- or two-bar segments of woodwind, strings and the occasional harp. These central motifs, repeated mesmerically, form the bedrock of a series of lovingly crafted atmospheres and zones, around which Jenssen pumps dense clouds of beatless ambience, ominously rumbling bass notes and endlessly shifting, impressionistic textures. Similar but never the same, the effect, over expanding repetitions, is lie watching the infinite variations of ripples in water.Jenssen still resides in Tromso, 30 miles inside the Arctic circle on the northern coast of Norway. No surprise, then, that critics astutely picked up on the 'iciness' of the sound of the albums he made for the R&S offshoot Apollo in the early 90s. On this showing, though, the overall feel is more pastoral and warm, a quality alluded to in track titles like "pathleadingtothehighgrass" and "greenreflections", and the CD artwork's photos of leaves, water, skies. Partly due to the disc's classical sound palette, perhaps, the rustic imagery makes more sense here than on other recent 'folksy' electronic releases. If the textures of Shenzhou don't exactly grab the attention, they do mirror the natural world with unusual subtlety. [Jerome Maunsell]

Splendidzine (USA):

It's hard not use terms like icy, frigid and desolate to describe the output of Geir Jenssen's Biosphere, when you consider the fact that this master of electro-ambience resides in his birthplace of Tromso, Norway -- which rests four hundred miles north of the Arctic circle. While it's hard to tell whether this sound should be attributed to the annual deprivation of sunlight during the long winter stretches that invade the far north, or simply to Jenssen's private nature, which is abetted through his great distance from cultural quarters, Biosphere's sound is full of claustrophobic beauty, of inward contemplation, and a clarity of artistic vision seemingly borne from such a unique environmental milieu. With Shenzhou, Jenssen lays out a conceptual framework upon which his organic compositions grow and thrive -- namely the scratchy recordings of orchestral works from Claude Debussy, which share Biosphere's kinship with the elusive qualities of the natural world. Samples of Debussy's arrangements form the backbone of ten of the twelve tracks that appear here: somnambulant rhythms slide along amorphous sonic textures that often approximate the imagined sounds of howling winds and cracking glaciers. At times, Debussy's disembodied string sections are transformed into the bitter lamentations of a spectral choir, fooling the listener into hearing the echoes of a human voice. Most exciting on Shenzhou is the rare incorporation of percussive elements from the original Debussy sources -- tracks such as "PathLeadingtotheHighGrass" have a visceral energy that cannot necessarily be assigned to the gliding, shapeless over- and under-tones that comprise much of the other compositions. Of the two tracks unconcerned with Debussy's work, "Bose-EinsteinCondensation" is the most striking; while it lacks the acute ambient textures that pervade the album, it instead incorporates abrupt piano figures with skittery, cut-up digital effects that immediately recall Oval's Dok. This sonic template is further explored on the epic album closer "GravityAssist", which shares qualities with both the recent electro-acoustic works of Robert Hampson's Main project and Eno's early ambient material. Jenssen's aesthetic strategies seem built upon a system of repetition (of Debussy's original works) that exposes form as form, alerting the listener to the rigidity of Debussy's arrangements in contrast to the floating atmospherics of the Biosphere sound. This brings about an awareness of Debussy's orchestrations as artifacts and infuses Jenssen's ambient structures with a timelessness that can be attributed to the source material's rich musical legacy. Shenzhou embraces this historical significance and reconstructs Debussy's classical concerns in a contemporary form that broadens the horizons of modern electronic music. [Mike Baker]

lastplanetojakarta.com (web):

My increasingly voracious twin obsessions of purity and obsolescence lead me this week to two albums that could hardly be more different from one another. One's a metal album, and I'll get to that in a few minutes. The other is Biosphere's Shenzhou, on the not-too-terribly-obscure Touch label out of England, and you've really got to listen to it. And I do mean Òlisten.' Biosphere makes electronic music of a type usually answering to the name 'ambient,' but I don't really know what that means. When Brian Eno invented the genre with his 1978 Music for Airports, he said something about wanting to make Òenvironmental music suited to a wide variety of moods and atmospheres,' and that the music he had in mind Òmust be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular...it must be as ignorable as it is interesting. Nobody apart from the chin-stroking hordes of Roxy Music fans really paid him much heed (the chin-stroking hordes, naturally, were suitably impressed: and I am not mocking them: I count myself among their numbers), and by 1983 you could find his lovely Editions EG volumes in cutout bins here and there, headed for the Blind Silence that will eventually greet us all. All movements being from their inceptions quite doomed, it came as no surprise to see that Ambient Music (Eno's capitals, not mine) hadn't come to much. But then technology became more accessible, and the rules of play changed a little. In the UK, there were some reportedly thrilling experiments in the nightclub-as-social-event. Channels of music distribution experienced an opening-up. (They have since snapped shut again.) Suddenly everybody had a computer, and the KLF made an album called Chill Out, and some dance acts (I have in mind mainly the Psychic Warriors of Gaia, but there were a thousand others) started to make music that was equally suited for dancing or for talking over while it played at low volumes: mood pieces; Mantovani on silicon; background ivory-tinkling from the near future. In the years that followed, a very loosely-knit underground of artists & listeners formed, slowly and anonymously; it was a community where audience & artist tended, by and large, to be the same people; and, save for a brief moment when the press was bending over backwards to announce that electronic music Had Really Arrived (in case you missed it, this coincided with one of Madonna's producers discovering the classic 808 sound), it managed to keep itself mainly below the radar, where all good things thrive. Which bring us to Biosphere's Shenzhou, which per the suitably spartan liner notes contains ten tracks Òbased on the orchestral works of Claude Debussy' (it's nowhere near as pretentious as it sounds) plus two more, and is packaged in a simply gorgeous three-panel digipak. It is ambient electronic music: no doubt about it. It is practically subliminal. You have to force yourself to listen to it, or else it recedes not only into the background but into the unseen infrastructure that supports the very background itself. It's a lot of loops and repeating themes; its bass tones are sea-deep bubbles that shy away from inflection like moles avoiding the sun; none of the songs contain any melodic development of any kind (which, interestingly enough, was actually part of Debussy's gift to music: a loosening of the restraints that held melodies in check). All of them are utterly and equally entrancing. Usually our modus operandi here at Last Plane to Jakarta is to single out a song for close examination and then see what it has to say for itself, but to isolate any one moment from Shenzhou's twelve glimpses of the Schumann resonance would be to miss the point completely. These songs float like clouds over a listener, changing the temperature and lighting of the room without calling attention to themselves. And I love all this; some of it's as flatly, quietly riveting as a Takemitsu piece; but for me, it's pushed right over the top by the knowledge that nobody besides you and me cares, not even a little. ÒYou and me,' in this case, being the tiny handful of people who'll ever hear Shenzhou. We may care; I know I do; when I put this record on late at night, it seems like I've been waiting all my life for it. But it's on its way into the shadows, and history will swallow it whole. And this, then, brings us clean across the field of play to Annihilatus's Blood and War, which is by no means ambient at all (although I do have a theory about metalcore being a trance-oriented music, which I'll go into more detail about if enough people want to hear about it: let me know), but which is comparable in obscurity to Shenzhou. [John Darnielle]

Echoes On-Line (Germany):

Das Urteil Musiker und ihre geografische Herkunft - ein wichtiger Zusammenhang? Der Trend sagt eindeutig ja. Island als das Kuba der Generation Cordjacke, Sigur R—s als der Buena Vista Social Club einer sich nach Romantik sehnenden Studentenschaft. Im Vergleich dazu: Norwegen. Geir Jenssen lebt dort, wo dich die K?lte regelrecht zerfrisst. Wer wŸrde mit ihm tauschen wollen? FŸr l?nger als zwei, drei Wochen, meine ich - na? Dachte ich's mir doch. ãShenzhouÒ aber ist ein bemerkenswert originelles Werk, dem man die Abgeschiedenheit des Machers und Denkers dahinter regelrecht anzuh?ren glaubt. Und das gibt in Zeiten des unaufh?rlich klingelnden Mobiltelefons von vornherein Sympathiepunkte. Obwohl sich Jenssen diesmal - man verzeihe mir diese Wortwahl - auf durchaus dŸnnem Eis bewegt: Der Nachfolger von ãSubstrata 2Ò n?mlich ist dem Impressionisten Claude Debussy gewidmet, die Musik von ãShenzhouÒ zum Gro§teil - inklusive Samples - deutlich von den orchestralen Kompositionen des franz?sischen KŸnstlers inspiriert. Anderen h?tte es das Genick gebrochen. Jenssen allerdings besitzt genug Sensibilit?t und Eigenst?ndigkeit, um Kitsch gar nicht erst in Frage kommen zu lassen. Ein beruhigend erdiges GrundgefŸhl, das an die alten Ambient-Blaupausen ˆ la ãMusic for AirportsÒ erinnert, begleitet den H?rer durch zw?lf angenehm unverkrampft arrangierte StŸcke, die man am besten - Klischee hin oder her - nach Mitternacht bei ged?mpftem Licht auf sich wirken lassen sollte. So gelingt dem Projekt Biosphere mit seiner arktischen, aber doch warm umschlie§enden Musik das unaufdringliche Vermitteln von Kl?ngen und Bildern zwischen den unterschiedlichen Ebenen.[Kai Ginkel]

Dusted (USA):

Classical leanings

The fundamentally disparate worlds of electronic and classical music have, on occasion, meshed to form truly inspirational music. Brian Eno set the standard with Discreet Music in 1975. The Stars of the Lid made stirring use of strings on last year’s The Tired Sound of…. Bjork has made a living out of the stuff for over a decade. For every success, however, there is a Moby song…literally. The tiny bald hypocrite has “scored” enough wretch-inducing string sections to cast the entire concept into the realm of melodrama, overshadowing many more talented musicians with his contrived crescendos. The formulated assemblage of strings is hardly a rare occurrence in classical music, but artists like Moby cement the misperception that violins exist merely as a tool for emotional manipulation. Biosphere lies content at the other end of the spectrum. Biosphere, a.k.a. Geir Jenssen, a graduate of the micro-house school of minimalism, is one of the world’s premier ambient composers. His last two albums, Substrata and Cirque on the Touch label, rank among the best of their years thanks to their overwhelming attention to detail and texture. Jenssen’s latest, Shenzhou, at least matches the success of his previous two outings and does so through a sonic quilt of horns, reeds, percussion and, yes, strings.

Jenssen’s compositions on Shenzhou samples sounds from the great 19th century composer Claude Debussy, resulting in a pastoral warmth previously unheard in the Biosphere catalog. Jenssen composes most of his music in the Arctic Circle in his home in Tromso, Norway, a city that sits at 69° latitude, 18° longitude, or roughly the equivalent of Siberia or Alaska, so green fields of sunshine are not immediately available as tangible stimuli. Yet, with Debussy’s lush samples in hand, Jenssen constructs a greenhouse of sound so vivid, you can almost see the steam rising out into the arctic air.

Inside Shenzhou, songs pulse with the urgency and unpredictability of Mother Nature. “Path Leading to the High Grass” almost explodes with tension as Jenssen’s soft backdrop wrestles with Debussy’s staccato flutes. “Ancient Campfire” crackles with an audible vinyl hiss while overlapping clarinets descend steadily into the smoke like moths submitting to the flame. There’s an uneasiness apparent throughout the record and Jenssen tightropes the threshold between ephemeral calm and impending doom with incredible poise, never toppling over into either spectrum. Shenzhou captures the moment when the clouds start to gather, but never gives into thunder and lightning. “Green Reflections,” the last of ten pieces composed via Debussy, is perhaps the most reassuring of the collection, a sunrise of synths and clarinets, but Jenssen immediately changes direction with the eerie underwater piano of “Bose-Einstein Condensation.” The abrupt shift doesn’t ruin “Green Reflections’” beauty as much as it throws the serenity into question. The same can be said for Shenzhou as a whole.

Jenssen has once again created a contemplative masterpiece of texture and detail. Contrasting Debussy’s orchestral genius with his own trademark ambience was a brilliant idea and an innovative, if subtle, use of classical underpinning in electronic music. [Otis Hart]

Side-Line (Belgium):

A new album by Biosphere means a very particular event in the world of ambient! With "Shenzhou", Geir Jenssen goes on with the exploration of the limits of atmospheric music in a way that has already differentiates him (sic) from the beginning with all other artists in this genre! Ten tracks of this album are based on the orchestral works of Claude debussy. Well, I'm not really familiar with th work of the french composer, but I can't really recognise any reference to classical music... except the way the tracks have been conceived in the mind of the author! You can hear different parts running through the s piece while all pieces together creates (sic) a unity! Behind the kind of soundscapes certainly lies an imaginary vision that has been possibly inspired by the oeuvre of Debussy. This work sounds rather cold and a bit anguishing (sic), like the immense fields of the high North covered with snow during a cold winter. This imaginary picture has been transposed into a sound-picture full of varied sound manipulations. I've always loved the way G. Jenssen mix his sound (sic), like it permanently remains in the background. There's no single bombastic burst! Everything remains under control and precisely this background feeling creates the splendour of Biosphere and the new album. This is the kind of record you have to discover and enjoy as a long during (sic) single piece. Biosphere remains for sure one of the absolute and uncontestable leading forces of what we've called ambient! (DP: 7/8)

VITAL (The Netherlands):

Transmissions from another time and another place. That would be the shortest description of Biosphere's music. Geir Jenssen's sonic explorations lead him this time to Claude Debussy's orchestral works in the first ten pieces. It seems to me, he even uses orchestral sounds lifted from old records. Jenssen's music is rather simple: multi-layered static sounds (loops, samples, synths) above which he adds a small rhythmic sound sources. He lets his sources go loose and everything spins for a while. Slowly he twists a few knobs, changing the colouring of the music a little bit and the moves on to the next piece. It's minimal music indeed, so simple and yet so beautifully done. With great care these elements are placed next to each other and they interfere with each other and slowly beautiful tapestries of sound enroll before your eyes. 'Shenzhou' is a beautiful follow up to 'Cirque', however we should carefully ask Geir: "what's next?". It's likely possible he could craft another ten or so of these works, but were will it move in terms of development. (FdW)

Matiere Brut (France):

Originaire de Tromsø, Geir Jenssen sculpte patiemment depuis une quinzaine d’année la matière sonore. Après ses débuts avec le groupe Bel Canto, son tournant plus techno sous le nom de Bleep, il fonde finalement Biosphere en 1991 et, tel un aventurier solitaire, se lance à la recherche de l’arctic sound avec l’album Microgravity (Apollo / R&S – 1992). En quelques années, il se forge un style propre, voire un nouveau courant musical, influençant de nombreux nouveaux venus dans la scène musicale électronique. Peu à peu sa musique explore des territoires plus abstraits et radicaux, sa palette de sons se veut plus minimale, plus complexe et atteint sa maturité à partir de l’album Substrata (Origo sound – 1997, puis Touch – 2001). Son dernier album en date, Shenzhou, nous plonge dans une relecture de travaux de Debussy. A partir de quelques samples du maître, il crée un environnement sonore délicat et enivrant. Les basses omni-présentes font vibrer l’auditeur(trice) de tout son être, le (la) noyant dans un espace intemporel. Dans ce maelström tourbillonant, apparaissent, évoluent et s’évanouissent, quelques sons subtils et labiles, aussi fragiles qu’une fine couche de glace prête à céder sous le poids de l’auditeur(trice), pour l’emporter toujours plus loin dans l’éther. [Yann Hascoet]

Bad Alchemy (Germany):

der khle Klanglandschaftswizard aus dem norwegischen Troms, hat hier auf zehn der zwlf Tracks den orchestralen Impressionismus Claude Debussys remixt und recyclet. Er lsst, durch Vinylknistern gleichzeitig verstrkt und antiillusionistisch gebrochen, Klangpartikel und kurze Motivfragmente vermutlich aus 'La Mer', 'Nocturnes' oder 'Prlude l'aprs-midi d'un faune' noch minimalistischer und statischer flirren und flimmern und erzeugt ein nahezu arkadisches Chill-out-Ambiente, aus dem trumerische Blue-Afternoon-Stimmungen emanieren, die der Touch-sthetiker Wozencroft mit blau getnten Fotos von Himmel, Wasser und gemasertem Holz kongenial mittrgt.

sonicproduct.com (USA):

Since 1995 and my first exposure to Biosphere I have been a deep listener and have not once ever dismissed one of Geir Jenssen’s releases. Last one on the table was the two CD remaster of Substrata with the soundtrack to “Man with a Movie Camera” to accompany. When Substrata was released I flagged it as the greatest ambient album ever recorded… to this day that still holds true. That being said, I approached my first listening of Shenzhou with nothing shy of the highest expectations.

What I’m told here is that the first 10 tracks are based on the orchestral works of Claude Debussy, who I now have to investigate thoroughly. The 11th is Biosphere through and through. Now is where being a writer and being a listener clash. I’m listening to “Path Leading to High Grass”, my favorite track, right now while sitting in front of my computer. Not only am I here with a light on, at night, with a fan blowing 90 degree air into a 95 degree room, but in front of a computer attempting to feel these songs and accurately pass these feeling on to you. The responsibilities of the writer dull the privileges of the listener and the reader who doesn’t experience first hand, suffers most.

If I had my pick of the perfect listening place for this album, it would be drifting on a raft down the Hudson River through the halls of New York late at night. The mountains to my aft, the red city glow perma-sunset of Manhattan on the horizon. No need for a anything to reproduce the recording, rather just let it billow from star to star and let me catch the echoes I need. That seems to be exactly how this music was captured anyway.

As introduced before, Geir’s recordings hide at the deep end of the volume knob and the lower end of the sound field. This is not loud music by any stretch, at the same time is insulted as back ground music. The gap Shenzhou fills lays between the plateaus of complete silence and those moments when you can hear music that isn’t there. A soft bassy hum rolls around with airy textures driving by, slowly a string or piano key speeds up from behind, pulls over the airy texture and writes it a ticket.

All over this record is perfect mixtures of the Biosphere ambiance and Substrata like tones we’re all locked into bed with, but the new introduction to the family is the influence of Debussy. The front seat of each song carries quite beautiful classical elements and share breath with every tone and texture underneath.

Writing this is obviously a slight premature as it still requires deep study from me. Biosphere is the last artist I’d cheapen with only a few thousand listens, so I’m still sentenced to a long quite time with this album. Bottom line though, not being exposed to Biosphere’s sounds, atmospheres and sonic images is true crime for any one with a pair of ears, knowing Geir’s work and not following up with time spent on Shenzhou is that much worse. [Kyle Godbey]

Luna Kafe (USA):

Assembled from looping scratches of his old red-label Claude Debussy records, Geir Jenssen, in isolation up in Tromsø, Norway, has also spent considerable time swimming with his own heartbeat dans La Mer frigide. The warm crackling analogs of that vinyl have surely wrapped themselves around his small white shape here, the oboes and strings curling in as well, as loose sheets of paper might in feeding the diminutive interior campfire that must somehow fend off the ever-burgeoning deep blue chill of the waters surrounding. How he keeps the spaciously strewn embers glowing even as they plunge so deep into the Arctic Ocean is amazing in and of itself, warming the waters as it sinks further and further into iced, unknown depths of the dark, pressurized body. Small bubbles of oxygen stately stream toward the surface in tiny release. Jenssen's flares burn hazy, heavenly paths through the darkness, fallout from the spaced, frozen stars as above, so the unfathomable below. The bass resonates, smoldering like a phosphorescent jellyfish between the woodwind timbers of sunken ships so black and stark near the ocean floor, with thin slivers of fish circling through their barnacled bones. Beacons get lost, grateful for the deep sleep approaching. Submerged lights, fibrillations of both wave and swimming particles, are emitted from the deepest, most chillingly remote blackness. This glows the entire trajectory down, illuming the furthest boundaries of the listening body's extremities, providing a guiding light even in the most frigid of isolation tanks.

Chronicart.com (France):

Un petit tube et puis s’en va. On dit souvent qu’il n’y a pas de deuxième carrière pour les groupes dont la carrière a été lancée par une pub Levi’s. Biosphere a failli confirmer la règle. Lancé par le jean à poche à capote, on découvrait en 1998 Geir Jensen le norvégien, l’ex Bel Canto devenu techno. Son Novelty waves endiablé lançait la vaguelette "arctic sound", mélange de rythmes squelettiques rendus cassants par le gel et d’illustrations sonores faites de vent, d’eau, de vide. Cassé -ou lassé- par la réussite, Biosphere a abandonné les pistes de danses et les rythmes qui l’avait rendu célèbre. Il est remonté toujours plus haut pour faire de ses disques autant de carnets de croquis du grand Nord. Epurée, sa musique parle désormais du soleil qui ne se couche jamais et des glaciers qui fondent. C’est un monde élémentaire sans réelle aspérité où se croisent basses sourdes, rythmes mangés par l’espace et la distance, lucioles synthétiques qui donnent réalité à ses paysages et rares samples illustratifs. Ayant avec des disques comme Substrata ou Cirque vaincu tous les pôles, il lui restait l’avenir et le passé à découvrir. Il s’en charge avec son nouvel album Shenzou. Composé presque uniquement à partir des œuvres orchestrales de Claude Debussy, Biosphere arrange une infinité de samples tirés de ces disques. Il empile couche après couche, introduit échos et contrefaçons, fait un disque ambiant d’une puissance rarement égalée. Loin d’être neutres, on lit dans ces entrelacs de cordes et lointaines lignes de clarinettes l’espoir et l’attente, parfois même la menace. Il faut entendre les cordes de violoncelle battre la mesure dans Pathleading, ou se répandre sur un lit de basses surhumaines dans Thermalmotion. Et puis deux titres avant la fin, tout s’arrête. Debussy est parti et on est laissé seul avec des bouts de techno tournants tous seuls dans le vide -on remonte lentement à la surface. Reprenant à son compte cette idée de symphonie dans le rock chère à certains musiciens des années 1970, Geir Jenssen en offre l’équivalent au monde de la techno en 2002, le ridicule en moins, réussissant le tour de force d’instrumentaliser un grand compositeur, en le mettant au service d’une esthétique inhabituelle par sa force et sa nature. [Jean-Bernard André]

Pitchfork (USA):

"Shenzhou", aside from being the name of the Chinese manned-spaceflight vehicles, means "magic vessel", and I can't imagine a more apt description for Geir Jenssen's latest excursion into ambient deep listening. After following an Aphexian trajectory with his releases on Apollo, the ambient sublabel of Belgium's R&S Records, Jenssen veered from the padded sci-fi-inspired techno of Microgravity and Patashnik with 1997's Substrata, a genre-defining exploration of drifting soundscapes. Substrata remains for many the album that perfectly expresses the serenity and intensity of Arctic wildernesses, a landscape Jenssen knows intimately, having spent much of his life in the Norwegian Arctic Circle. In 2000, Jenssen nearly eclipsed the success of Substrata with Cirque, a frequently frosty submerging of excerpted conversations and found environmental sounds that rivals Wolfgang Voigt's Gas project in its rumbling, gauzy beauty. Jenssen again relies on found sound as source material for Shenzhou, but this time, the found sound is old vinyl recordings of the orchestral works of French Impressionist composer and ambient precursor, Claude Debussy. Jenssen lifts fragments of these scratched records in a similar manner as he did for Cirque's "Black Lamb Grey Falcon" and "Iberia Eterea".

The ten tracks (out of the dozen on the album) that follow this model all begin as a barely audible hum, like a small electrical transformer, out of which the dust-dappled loops of Debussy's woodwind, brass, and strings emerge, condense, and fade out into pink noise rustles. Unlike Steve Reich's phase pieces or Brian Eno's Discreet Music, though, Jenssen doesn't set his loops against each other to produce juxtapositions and piquant dissonance; he uses them to describe imagined terrain, at first glance monotonously flat and barren, but on concentration, replete with minute detailing. The overall effect of these pieces is a sense of immensity. The orchestral loops sound distant, abandoned in a vast wilderness, and strenuously battling against Arctic winds. Jenssen sets the listener down in this wilderness as an aloof observer, a witness to the music's futile struggles against entropic forces.

The two tracks not derived from Debussy share the same hypnotic aesthetic. The brief interlude "Bose-Einstein Condension" is a loop of piano chords lolloping in search of coherence, while "Gravity Assist" is a longer voyage into woofer-quaking low-frequency manipulation, bell-like drones, and contrails of subdued noise. I can't help but feel that these tracks fit awkwardly and break up the conceptual flow of the album. This, however, is a minor quibble given the power of this music. Shenzhou is unquestionably a magic vessel, but one that reveals its enchantment only to those who pay close attention. [Paul Cooper]

Stylus [USA]:

Taking his cues from the world's coldest, most remote regions, Geir Jenssen (AKA Biosphere) has recorded some of the loveliest atmospheric music of our time, bringing the listener on icy explorations, both tranquil and foreboding, of windswept sonic tundras. On 2000's Cirque, Jenssen's aural journeys were more literal than usual, with each song inspired by a different isolated locale.

For his latest album, Shenzhou, Biosphere turns away from geographic inspiration to delve into the music of composer Claude Debussy. Ten of the twelve tracks directly incorporate samples of Debussy's "impressionist" classical music, with Biosphere's warm drones and environmental swooshes surrounding the orchestrated loops. A rich vinyl hiss permeates the entire album, creating the impression that Jenssen is simply listening to his Debussy records on an old turntable and improvising around them-and perhaps he is, but the whole thing sounds so thoroughly integrated that it'd be hard to believe it.

The album, like all great ambient, flows by easily in the background if you're not paying attention, but closer inspection reveals a depth and complexity that the surface barely suggests. Portions of Debussy are chopped up and looped in tiny fragments, creating a rhythmic undercurrent that flows beneath the entire record. Often the loop is so tiny that the distinct string parts of the composer's pieces are squashed and blended into a blurry mush that is easily woven into the fabric of Biosphere's music.

Jenssen's non-sampled contributions to the album consist mainly of deep, subterranean bass tones and the distant whirr and crackle of electronics. On standouts like "Thermal Motion," the main instrument is the Debussy music-cut and spliced into a fluid stream that sounds more like an icy river than that the heat source evoked by its title. The album's best moment, "Ancient Campfire," is more true to its name, with subtle cymbal clicks and crackling vinyl creating an aural image of a night spent in the woods huddled around a dying fire.

Like most of the album, this track combines conflicting emotions to elicit subtle shadings of mood. The dread-inducing hum of these tracks is nearly countered by the lulling melodic sense. On "Path Leading to the High Grass," one of the few songs to incorporate percussive sounds, a muted bass drum pounds out a measured, ominous rhythm as fractured samples and insectile shaking flits across the surface of the track; it's one of the most active moments on the disc, creating a claustrophobic warmth out of chaos.

The subtle intertwining of Debussy's scores throughout this record provides a thematic and aural continuity between the individual tracks, helping the whole thing flow together nicely. Shenzhou is another fine offering from Biosphere; its delicate subtleties and sweeping beauty weave through your mind as elegantly as its disparate parts weave through each other. [Ed Howard]

Biosphere "Substrata 2" reviews

Bookmat (Web):

A new album from Geir Jensson aka Biosphere is always a special event here at the Neck. This is not strictly a new album, but the usual evocative Touch packaging and photography give it a whole new character. This double CD consists of the 'the finest ambient album of the 1990s' Substrata, originally released on All Saints in 1997, here in a freshly re-mastered version. Musically well beyond the confines of beauty, subtle, haunting, lush, stately - the type of music that takes you to so many different places. Classics in the truest sense. The second CD 'Man With A Movie Camera' is Geir's commision for the Tromsø International Film Festival of 1996 on a reworking of the Russian silent film with the same name dating back to 1929 from director Dziga Vertov. On this work Geir collaborates with Per Martinson aka Mental Override who also joined up with Biosphere as part of the 'Nordheim Transformed' piece on Rune Grammophon. To complete this astonishing set you then get extra tracks from the Japanese version of Substrata. Essential.

freg.org [net]:

To call Substrata a good album is an understatement. It has been described as one of the finest Ambient albums of the Nineties. As far as I'm concerned you can scrub out the bit about the Nineties. Biosphere, a.k.a. Geir Jenssen from Norway, has created some of the most amazing Ambient music I've heard in a very long time. Substrata is an album to play at full volume in sub-zero conditions. This re-release of Substrata is a lovingly-designed two CD edition containing two extra tracks that were released on the Japanese version of the album, along with the Man With a Movie Camera. In 1996 Geir Jenssen was asked to write a new soundtrack for Russian filmmaker Dziga Vertov's 1929 silent film of the same name, and hopefully one day the score and film will be placed together in some medium or other. The Japanese tracks are the only tracks on either CD that can be said to have a beat in any conventional electronic sense of the word. They are good mechanical forward moving Trance tracks. Apart from these the album is beat free. It pulsates slowly and statically. The music is beautifully still. Tracks like "The Things I Tell You" and "Chukhung" are made up of delicate hovering melodies. "Hyperborea" is as ice cold and austere as possible. "Sphere of No Form" is at points soft then harsh then soft again. Large Buddhist horns of infinite length obliterate the barely perceptible sound of the wind; in time the harsh endless echoed horns are themselves replaced by lush analogue ripples. The soundtrack for Man With A Movie Camera is haunting and colossal. It is a collected of wonderfully crafted soundscapes. Concrete sound mixes with pulsations, drifting distant voices, and dislocated moments of sampled music. Superb stuff.

adverse effect vol 2 no. 5 (UK):

Can Norway's Geir Jenssen elevate his Biosphere to a level any higher...? For over a decade now, he has consistently managed to find new glacial corners to explore with this magnificent platform which now favours collating sheets of sound together over the beat-driven material of his earlier work. However, it's not all shimmering icicles and Thomas Köner-esque post-industrial scrapings 'n' musings on display here. Rather, traces of Jenssen's original post-techno ripples can still be found 'neath the finely crafted filmic swathes, dialogue snippets, occasional gtr strums and archaic samples. Absolutely everything on this double-set hangs together sublimely and in a manner rarely found in such circles at the moment. The very fact that digi-exploration has moved into different realms during more recent years has actually afforded Jenssen the opportunity to take his own pursuits even further. Everything might suggest a modicum of familiarity on the surface but, clichés aside, repeated listenings reveal apparently different patterns of sound every time. And, sure, the very fact that each and every Biosphere release seems to document several degrees of genuine evolution speaks for itself, really. [RJ]

XLR8R, USA:

Geir Jenssen, a.k.a. Biosphere, released Substrata in 1997, an ambient album that went unnoticed by most, quietly sliding beneath the musical collective consciousness.Thankfully, the UK's Touch label has decided to unearth this gem and reissue it along with a second disc that include's Jenssen's soundtrack to the Dziga Vertov black-and-white classic film Man with a Movie camera. The music within is starkly beautiful, glacial and slow-paced in its movement, much like the scenery of Jenssen's native Norway. Piano chords drift over snowy banks of synths; melodic loops build, only to break off slowly and eventually reform. Occasional voices drift in and out of the mix, just at the edge of one's range of hearing. Lucid dreaming in the form of sound, immense and grandiose in its scope. [Brock Phillips]

The Wire, UK:

'Substrata' has quietly garnered a reputation as one of the last decade's notable Ambient recordings, and while this remastering does not diverge radically from the 1997 edition on All Saints - edges are softened, balance gently tweaked - having the excuse to listen to it anew reveals a logic often obscured by its subaquatic haze. Steeped in echo, 'Substrata' uses a healthy dose of ambient noise (airplane buzz, street sounds, bird calls) to flesh out its liquid lyricism; it treads the line between music and sound, but errs just on this side of music, returning again and again to deep, resonant melodies. But elsewhere Biosphere's temporal suspension, via cycling arpeggios and long, blurred sustain, updates classic Ambient music's indeterminacy with string laden pastoralism. Of the two bonus tracks included from the original Japanese edition, 'Eardurium', which revolves uneasily around a single focal point, shows Geir Jenssen at his most hypnotic, applying the trappings of Techno (metallic, repetative beats, four bar chord progressions) to an Ambient sound palette that slips mercurially into less recognisable terrain. The second CD features Biosphere's 1996 soundtrack (co-produced with Mental Overdrive's Per Martinsen) for Dziga Vertov's 1929 silent film, 'Man With A Movie Camera'. Like 'Substrata', with which it shares samples, the score makes generous use of field recordings, but it's more ominous and less melodic. When played along with a video of the film, it makes for a curious accompaniment, pitting Biosphere's mellifluous drones against Vertov's choppy montage. What's fascinating, in pairing the two, is the realisation that music so rarely has approximated cinematic syntax; it's disappointing then, that Biosphere's soundtrack doesn't hew to the language of cinema more closely. After Vertov's delicate tightrope walk between representation and non-representation, you wish for something less patently musical, and more like Chris Watson's field recordings. Of course, a jerry-rigged home viewing is bound to produce some fortuitous moments, entirely unplanned (and unrepeatable) given the difficulty of cuing the tracks precisely. Otherwise Biosphere's thousand league ambiance has always been too fluid to mimic Vertov's disjointed sequences. [Philip Sherburne]

Other Music, USA:

Two discs of the best work of Biosphere, the project (mostly) of Norwegian Geir Jenssen since 1991. "Substrata", originally released in 1997 on Eno's All Saints records, has been cited more than once as one of the most beautiful ambient albums ever recorded. Gentle and deep (and now remastered), it has a lot in common with Eno's own work, from the clearer parts (there's muted singing here and there, lots of softly echoing warm guitar and bamboo chimes), to the immersive soundscapes of innocent, not ominous drones and electronic gurgles. The second CD in this set is the 'soundtrack' to Dziga Vertov's 1929 classic abstract film "Man with a Movie Camera", that Biosphere executed as per the instructions left behind by Vertov. This is an essential bit of film as well as musical history -- Vertov imagined a musique concrete soundtrack in 1929 (!), but technology wasn't quite up to it yet. It consists of more deep hums, ship's whistles and altered church bells, the sounds of twenties nightclubs, jazz bands, industry and railroad yards fading in and out, words in a thick Russian accent. A fantastic recording, both historically and in sound alone --combined with Biosphere's best album, this package is as about as essential to those interested in the history of the avant-garde or just want something lovely to do yoga to. At the very least, this is the best Biosphere recording to have. [RE]

Brainwashed [net]:

Geir Jenssen's 1997 Biosphere album has been remastered and nicely re-packaged with a bonus disc for Touch. Disc 1 is "Substrata" proper and disc 2 is a new, previously unreleased, commissioned soundtrack for the 1929 Russian film "Man with a Movie Camera", plus the 2 beat infused bonus tracks from the Japanese edition of the album. Both discs, nearly an hour apiece, offer a continuous, deep ambient jigsaw puzzle - disc 2 being the noisier with a more urban/industrial aura. We slowly, willingly drift along through chilled out spaces and cityscapes, natural hums and environmental residues, electronic pads and blips, the clutter of metals and trinkets, disembodied voices and appropriated musical passages, synth strings and plucked/strummed strings ("Kobresia" in particular settles into a beautiful stringed stasis), softly malleted tones and some subtle rhythmic pulsations. Very soothing, very calming, very Arctic. Jenssen's reclusive Norwegian locale undoubtedly influences the vast, dark and cold nature of his music. But what's surprising to me is how emotionally cold much of it also seems despite it's surface beauty ... a sort of depressing, lonely void. That feeling overwhelms me here at times, but sometimes you want to feel that way, know what I mean? [Mark Weddle]

VITAL, The Netherlands:

I found the presence of Biosphere on Touch a bit odd. The ambientesque sound next to Rehberg & Bauer, Mika Vainio or John Duncan? The covers of Touch usually reflect the difference between technology (music) and landscape (cover photos), but with Biosphere this difference is no longer apperent. As a follow up to Cirque, and on the coincidence of the Touch series of concerts happening right now. This 2CD sees older works in print again. 'Substrata' is the follow up to Patashnik, which I thought was a brilliant album (it still is a landmark of ambient techno by the way). I never heard 'Substrata' the first time it was around, maybe I lost interest in ambient? Because both 'Microgravity' and 'Patashnik' were landmarks of techno meeting ambient, well or vice versa, 'Substrata' is a downright ambient album, using field recordings, stretched waves of synthetic sound, next to sampled acoustic instruments, such as guitars and piano's. Mellow stuff throughout, no beats here. I could not say if this is really taking a new stand on the throdden paths of ambient, but it's very nice work indeed. Maybe, after all, I didn't loose my interest in ambient... As I argumented (sic) a few weeks back, I have nothing with film, so I rarely see one, so I just know about the Dziga Vertov film 'Man With A Movie Camera', but I have never seen it. Vertov left instructions for the music to his silent film and Geir interpreted these for his soundtrack. This is the Biosphere that the adventurous listener in me likes to see. Intercepting with radio transmissions, or maybe even ghostly messages, who knows, sitting next to very minimal bass beats. The remaining two tracks on this CD were originally on the Japanese edition of Substrata and could be right of Patashnik. Full beat stuff, nice keyboard tunes and more radio.

Incursion [Canada]:

Substrata, Geir Jenssen's classic ambient album originally released by All Saints Records in 1997, gets the "remastered and repackaged with bonus material" treatment by Touch. The bonus material in question consists of Jenssen's soundtrack to Man With A Movie Camera, a Russian silent film from 1929 by Dziga Vertov, as well as two tracks originally released with the Japanese edition of Substrata. The soundtrack was originally commissioned for the Troms¿ International Film Festival in 1996, and is available here for the first time. Released as a 2CD set with beautiful packaging (courtesy of Jon Wozencroft and Heitor Alvelos), it seems a little strange that this should have been released at a time when the All Saints edition is still readily available. Substrata is a quintessential Biosphere record, and, along with the more recent Cirque CD (also on Touch) it is essential listening for any ambient fan; distinctive, dream-like atmospheres, slow rhythms and narratives from distant voices carry you through this opaque, icy sound world. The second disc, Man With A Movie Camera, uses a lot of the same source material used in Substrata (as in the vocal samples, for example, which if my ears are not deceiving me, are sourced from Twin Peaks), but the structures are more tight, periodically erupting into more energetic electro rhythms, matched by the arctic stillness that characterises so much of Biosphere's work. Purists should note that the original Substrata was not restructured or reworked for this release, just remastered, which also means that unless you're a die-hard Biosphere fan looking to own his complete works, this release probably won't serve much of a purpose if you already have the original. That being said, since its original release four years ago, Substrata has quickly become an ambient classic, owing to Jenssen's unique sound, a strange, compelling world of loneliness seen through a lens clouded by ice and snow. If you have yet to be introduced to his work, this is a perfect place to start. [Richard di Santo]

Pro 7 [Germany]:

Stell Dir vor, Du sitzt in Deinem KŸhlschrank. Zun?chst ist alles ganz still, doch dann rauscht es leise durch die Leitungen. Wasser tropft, gluckst und gefriert wieder. Entfernte Stimmen quatschen unverst?ndlich vor sich hin. Jemand pocht von au§en mit einem Metallstab gegen das Geh?use. Und dann surren Dir auch noch elektronische Loops aus dem GemŸsefach entgegen. Wenn Du jetzt denkst "Wie um alles in der Welt komme ich hier wieder raus?" - dann ist das arktische Elektronik-Doppelalbum "Substrata"/"Man With A Movie Camera" wohl eher nicht Dein Fall. Falls Du aber zu den Leuten geh?rst, die verrŸckt genug sind, das cool zu finden - dann sind die eisigen Klanglandschaften des norwegischen KŸnstlers Geir Jenssen alias Biosphere wohl genau das Richtige, um Deine Sinne zu sensibilisieren. "Ambient" - das dŸrfte wohl der passende Begriff fŸr diese Soundgebilde sein. Elektronik-Pionier Brian Eno stand hier Pate. Warum das ein Doppelalbum mit verschiedenen CD-Titeln ist? "Substrata" wurde ehemals 1997 ver?ffentlicht. Nun haben wir es mit den remasterten Aufnahmen zu tun: Leise Dubs ver?ndern sich minimal, gehen ineinander Ÿber. An einer akustischen Gitarre wird vertr?umt herumgezupft. Schemenhaft kŸndigt sich immer wieder neues Soundgeschwader an. NatŸrlich gaaanz leise. Und gaaanz soft. Manchmal klingt das recht esoterisch. Meistens aber eher minimalistisch. Konzentrieren wir uns aber auf CD2, "Man With A Movie Camera", die v?llig neu ist: Ein digitales Orchester bittet zum Tanz (der wohl eher im Kopf stattfindet): Hin und wieder l?uten Kuhglocken, Wortfetzen jagen durchs Ger?uschgeflecht. In "Freeze Frames" dr?hnt ein Presslufthammer, der zum hektischen Herzschlag mutiert. Eine Chansonette ˆ la Edith Piaf gibt irgendwo weit entfernt ein Lied zum Besten. "Manicure" beginnt mit pl?tscherndem Wasser - dazu spielt im Nebenzimmer ein barockes Tanzorchester. Pl?tzlich zischt es laut und pausenlos. Unvermeidlich dr?ngt sich die Frage auf: "Oh Gott, habe ich zu Hause den Gashahn zugedreht?" Mitunter erwischt man sogar Hook-Lines. Und genau dann - wenn die ganze intellektuelle Avantgarde mal bei Seite geschoben wird - entwickelt sich "Man With A Movie Camera" zum genialen Minimal-Techno. Einiges klingt sogar symphonisch ("Endurium"). Biosphere macht es dem Zuh?rer nicht gerade leicht. Wenn Du Zeit und Lust hast, Dich auf eine neue Erfahrung einzulassen - dann besorge Dir dieses Album. Denn sich in den KŸhlschrank zu setzen und auf Ger?usche zu warten - das dŸrfte Dich ungleich teurer zu stehen kommen. (mip)

re:mote induction [UK]:

Four years after its original release, Biosphere's Substrata is this time released through Touch in a re-mastered format and with an additional CD containing the Man With A Movie Camera soundtrack and two bonus tracks that were originally released on the Japanese version of Substrata. Of course, the packaging has been redesigned and is now in keeping with the design work on recent Touch releases such as the Light compilation of work by Biosphere, Hazard and Fennesz. Disk 1 of this release is the Substrata album, one that is widely considered to be the pinnacle of Geir Jenssen's career so far. Listening to the album for the first time in a while I certainly found it pleasurable to be reacquainting myself with this release. For myself, I can't say for sure if this is the pinnacle; I can say it is a breathtaking album. The sound of the album as a whole could be easily considered to be typical Biosphere with pristine glacial soundscapes and minimal melodies floating and injecting themselves into the release. That would only be telling half of the story. Despite it being easy to classify the album this way, the real interest for me happens where the less expected elements filter into the composition. Sphere Of No Form is one such example, above the atmosphere of the piece a horn blows off in the distance. Not the pomp of European brass more a natural resonance of wood shaping the sound. Joining the horn comes the striking of bells or chimes that shimmer adding another layer to the dense yet serene composition. Elements that would not necessarily associate themselves with the cold tundra of the soundscape finding a perfect home in this piece. Another highlight of the album is the expectant Chukhung whose bass level pulses with synthesis pushing and resting gradually building interplay with other melodic components. There is a definite thought of the synthetic in this piece, but a notion that has been forged into a more organic nuance. Through the track, the arrangement remains sparse and sounds never threaten to overwhelm but yet the level of urgency ramps up as the songs runs it course. A final track I would single out for a specific mention is Times When I Know You'll Be Sad with a gentle guitar melody lifting out of the ambience to be joined by a distant vocal. An almost pop-like quality that shouldn't fit in with the flow of the album but somehow does before slowly submerging again beneath the soundscapes. By the end of this album it all too apparent that the work is strong throughout, the atmosphere is never shattered, broken or even cracked. The album exists as a whole and though pleasure can be had from the individual compositions the real revelation comes from the album in its entirety. Moving on to consider Disk 2 of the release it is here that I move into uncharted waters. Having never heard the Man With A Movie Camera soundtrack or the Substrata bonus tracks but being a huge fan of Jenssen's work I moved with definite anticipation. The Man With A Movie Camera soundtrack starts with a vocal sample from the early part of the last century, a sample that is clearly linked with the early days of cinema. From there the atmospherics are generated, echoing in space chimes and tones become the focal points. A mood is set for the piece here, a mood of ambience in a familiar style for Jenssen. This mood becomes the centre of the work with occasional stabs of strings, archaic vocal samples or click beats filtering into the work. A pleasant work that is definitely one to relax into rather than actively pursue. Finally to the bonus tracks from the Japanese release of Substrata. The initial impression is somewhat strange as these do not seem to quite fit with the mold of Substrata although perhaps this is because of the flow within that work as a whole. Stylistically, I would place these tracks as somewhere between the sound of Substrata but with a more techno oriented slant like that of earlier work such as Patashnik. Even so, the tracks are pleasant and serve well to round off the CD. In considerring this release as an entire package I can't really do anything other than recommend it. In particular I think this works well as introduction to the work of Geir Jenssen as it covers a wide range of his sound. However, if you already have Substrata then whether this is worth investing in is really a question of how much you appreciate his work.

The Sheffield Telegraph [UK]:

Follow-upto one of the best albums of last year. Cirque, the Norwegian twosome have remastered their 1997 landmark ambient album Substrata and coupled it with their 1996 soundtrack to Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera (also done by our own In the Nursery). Once again it is the textures, gentle beats, chilled out samples that give Biosphere's music such a unique atmosphere.

Tandem News [Canada]:

The 1997's top ambient release, originally on Eno's All Saints label, has been remastered and repackaged with the two bonus tracks from the expensive Japanese version. Working through the dark season in his home studio above the Arctic circle, Norway's Geir Jenssen made a name for himself with early '90s albums for the Belgian R&S label and a collaboration with German chill-out king Pete Namlook (Fires of Ork). Substrata perfectly fit within Eno's aesthetic of an electronic music that evokes geographic and psychological space. Jenssen's innovation on Substrata was to contrast acoustic instruments with his deep synth sonics, making subtle dramatic gestures with acoustic guitar in "Poa Alpina," autoharp in "Chukhung," and symphonic samples in the remotely grand "Kobresia." In retrospect these sounds were step one towards the ECM-ish textures on last year's brilliant Cirque release. Also in this double CD set is Jenssen and Per Martinsen's never before released music for Man With A Movie Camera, commissioned for the Troms¿ International Film Festival in 1996. This silent film documentary made by Dziga Vertov in 1929 toured the festival circuit in Europe, garnering similar commissions for the musical groups In The Nursery and Cinematic Orchestra.

Blow Up[Italy]:

Doppio cd in bella edizione digipack disegnata al solito da Jon Wozencroft mentore di casa Touch. Il primo cd va detto subito non ? altro che una versione rimasterizzata di "Substrata" il cd uscito su All Saints nel 1997 che qualcuno ma non il sottoscritto considera il pia bell'album ambient dei 90. Disco senz'altro discreto, giˆ recensito al tempo anche su queste pagine, la cui nuova edizione suona semmai ancora pia ovattata ed impalpabile. Vanno segnalate invece due bonus track The Eye of the Cyclone ed Endurium finora disponibili solo nella versione giapponese del cd, decisamente pia metalliche ed in sintonia con certa minimal techno cara al musicista di Tromsoe.Vale la pena invece di spendere qualche parola in pia sul secondo cd in questione: "Man With A Movie Camera" come dal titolo ? una delle tante possibili colonne sonore del celeberrimo L'uomo con la Macchina da Presa, il fantastico film muto diretto da Dziga Vertov nel 1929. Questa soundtrack ? stata commissionata a Geir Jenssen-Biosphere dall'International Film Festival di Tromsoe nel 1996. Il musicista dopo aver letto le istruzioni scritte lasciate da Vertov per l'accompagnamento musicale del film, ha naturalmente agito secondo la sua sensibilitˆ ed immaginario sonoro, e utilizzando alcuni campioni da "Substrata", ha messo in fila una sequenza di brani dal sicuro effetto cinematico, anche se non sono convinto siano tanto adatti al film di Vertov. Troppa forse la loro densitˆ, o potremmo dire paradossalmente troppa musicalitˆ. Ma il disco funziona bene di per se stesso, con un Biosphere nella sua veste pia dark ambient, fitta di field recordings, voci aliene, atmosfere sospese tra etere e materia. (7 e 7/8 rispettivamente) (Gino Dal Soler)

Evolver (net):

Lebenszeichen aus einer gefrorenen Welt "Substrata/Man With a Movie Camera", das von vielen mit nicht geringer Spannung erwartete Nachfolgewerk Geir Jensens fŸr Touch Records, erfreut zun?chst das Auge: Schlichter h?tte Stardesigner Jon Wozencroft gar nicht an die Sache herangehen k?nnen. Anscheinend ist auch er einer der vielen Zentraleurop?er, die gern Urlaubsdias schie§en... Das Papier-Digipack enthŸllt beim …ffnen zwei Silberscheiben, wobei zun?chst die zweite CD des Doppelalbums interessiert: "Man With a Movie Camera", Geir Jensens neu erschaffener Soundtrack zu einem fast vergessenen russischen Stummfilm von Dziga Vertov (1929). Der so vertonte Film wurde 1996 beim "Troms International Film Festival" uraufgefŸhrt. Was wir auf der Platte zu h?ren bekommen, sind Soundtrack-Ambience in h?chster Aufl?sung, spŸrbare Hallr?ume ohne Ende und High-Tech-Samples, die einfach klassisch und genial sind. Jensens Ideenreichtum scheint schier endlos, und dennoch gilt die Devise: Ruhe, Ruhe, Ruhe. Danach folgen die "Japanese tracks", die bislang nur den Japan-Export-CDs vorbehalten waren, und zwar als Bonustracks von "Substrata", das 1997 regul?r auf Biophon Records - Jensens eigenem Hauslabel - erschienen war. In der 2001er-Edition von Touch Records ist das Album als CD Nummer 1 gereiht. Auf "Substrata" erwartet selbst den Eno-Geeichtesten, den italienischen Dark-Ambient-Erprobtesten (Alio Die, Vidna Obmana, Five Thousands Spirits), wie auch den begeistertsten Lustmord-Fanatiker genau das, von dem er immer schon wu§te, da§ es sowas einfach geben mu§: der totale Chillout. †berhaupt scheint das sogenannte nordische Element in den letzten Jahren einen Siegeszug angetreten zu haben. Die Presse verh?lt sich wie immer bei solchen Trends - ein deutlicher Schwerpunkt Ÿber Berichte zum Thema "n?rdlicher Polarkreis" war zu verzeichnen. Als Rezensent kann man zwar nicht hundertprozentig best?tigten, da§ das melancholische, nordische Element, die Isolation, das "Weit-entfernt-sein" bei den Soundscapes von Biosphere am besten zu Tage tritt. Da denkt man dann doch eher an das Album "North" von Hazard oder - unvergessen - Hilmar …rn Hilmarssons Filmmusik "Children of Nature" (alle auf Touch Records). Doch es sind trotzdem Lebenzeichen aus einer gefrorenen Welt, die man hier zu h?ren bekommt - zeitgem?§ und spacey. Kaum ein anderer kann Klangmaterial spannender ineinander verweben, mal abgesehen von solchen Gr?§en wie Marc van Hoen/Locust, Paul SchŸtze oder Lagovski alias S.E.T.I. selbst. Die Vision ist also nicht Ÿbertrieben: klare, eisige Luft Ÿberall, vorbeitreibende Eisschollen; es dampft, wenn man ausatmet. Am Horizont erkennt man die W?lbung des Planeten. Und wenn die Sonne im Westen untergeht, erstrahlt das Firmament von unten. Das sch?ne an Biospheres Ambience ist, da§ sie immer funktioniert. Egal, wo und wann Mr. Jensen live spielt - er verwandelt jeden noch so hei§en Veranstaltungskessel (von manchen auch Clubbing genannt) in einen Eiskasten! Nordisch gut! Unbedingt antesten! [Ernst Meyer]

Side Line (Belgium):

This new album of Geir Jenssen, master of ambient, consists out of 2 discs. "Substrata" has been originally released in 1997 and now remastered, containing 11 tracks. "Man with a movie camera" consists of 7 tracks of the soundtrack with the same title and 2 tracks, originally released on the limited edition Japanese version of "Substrata". The first disc has been often considered as one of the absolute chef d'oeuvres in the contemporary ambient scene. The relaxing atmospheres are mainly built up without real rhythmic structures...just to accentuate the wafting sensation. It comes from the imagination and the talent of a world-wide-recognised composer. Listening to biosphere is like travelling through distant cultures and stunning landscapes. With the second disc, G. Jenssen was asked to write a new soundtrack for a Russian silent movie of 1929. I personally prefer this record for being a bit heavier, even if this isn't the right term for Biosphere. There's just a bit more dynamics in the structures, which I appreciate a lot. The last cuts (previously released on the Japanese "Substrata"-version) are more into rhythm and groovy arrangements. "The eye of the cyclone" is a great piece of music. This is Biosphere at his best, but not totally representative of what he's usually doing. A recommended present if you're into ambient and especially in the grip of Biosphere! (DP 7/8)

Chad Oliveiri [USA]:

Ambient music as a soundtrack to Dziga Vertov's jumpy 1929 silent film, Man With the Movie Camera, is an interesting proposition, but it doesn't quite pan out on paper. Vertov's film is an attempt to distill truth from visual "garbage," and it relies heavy on editing and montage. The music of Norway's Geir Jenssen is quite the opposite: methodical, side-long, pastoral. For the Movie Camera soundtrack, the Biosphere MO is adapted a bit to include musique conrète techniques, which help provide aural cues for anyone who attempts to view the film while listening to the music. Included with the soundtrack is a CD re-master of Biosphere's Substrata, and it's reason alone to buy the set. Jenssen's ambience has teeth. It's not the limp synth-wash wallpaper normally associated with the genre. Substrata is a very clear-headed statement of purpose. Field recordings mesh with billowing string arrangements. Ambient tones retain a brilliant luster and often take on a sinister sheen. Jenssen allows his music to be evocative in ways that many of his contemporaries would consider sinful. And in that sense, this is daring stuff indeed.

All-Music Guide [USA]:

Substrata 2 is not a sequel to Geir Jenssen, aka Biospher}’s critically-acclaimed 1997 CD, but a generously engrossed reissue. Following the success of Cirque, the artist’s first album for the highly-regarded UK label Touch, and coinciding with a string of live dates around England, the company decided to give this classic a complete overhaul. New artwork was produced by Touch artist Jon Wozencroft, the eleven original tracks were remastered, and a second CD was added. Of Substrata itself, little need to be said: the music is clearly into ambient domain, dominated by soft field recordings and lazy guitar lines (think of Loren Mazzacane Connor, Low, or even Godspeed You Black Emperor). The techno element has been relegated to electronic manipulations and discreet events of glitch. A monologue in Swedish appears as a watermark in “Kobresia,” bringing Biosphere’s music surprisingly close to Tibor Szemzö’s. Disc 2 contains over 50 minutes of music. First is the soundtrack to Man with a Movie Camera, a Russian silent film by Dziga Vertov dating back to 1929. Jenssen was asked to create a soundtrack using the director’s instructions for the accompanying piano player. The results are very cinematic -- which is not that easy to accomplish. Eery atmospheres, dominated by synthesizers this time, are interwoven with snippets of speech. In this project the music paradoxically moves into both more conventional techno domains, with the return of pulse, even constructed linear beats in “City Wakes Up” and “Ballerina,”} and electroacoustics verging on >musique concrète (“Manicure”). “Freeze-Frames,” with its short looped samples acting like a gallery of half-remembered images, provides the highlight. This second disc also contains two bonus tracks from the Substrata sessions, previously available only on the Japanese edition. “The Eye of the Cyclone” and “Endurium” are the most beat-driven music of the whole set, clearly club-oriented (especially in the first case). One easily understands why they were left off the original album.

allmusic.com:

Substrata 2 is not a sequel to Geir Jenssen aka Biosphere's critically acclaimed 1997 CD, but a generously engrossed reissue. Following the success of Cirque, the artist's first album for the highly regarded U.K. label Touch, and coinciding with a string of live dates around England, the company decided to give this classic a complete overhaul. New artwork was produced by Touch artist Jon Wozencroft, the 11 original tracks were remastered, and a second CD was added. Of Substrata itself, little need to be said: The music is clearly into ambient domain, dominated by soft field recordings and lazy guitar lines (think of Loren Mazzacane Connors, Low, or even Godspeed You Black Emperor!). The techno element has been relegated to electronic manipulations and discreet events of glitch. A monologue in Swedish appears as a watermark in "Kobresia," bringing Biosphere's music surprisingly close to Tibor Szemz?'s. Disc two contains over 50 minutes of music. First is the soundtrack to Man With a Movie Camera, a Russian silent film by Dziga Vertov dating back to 1929. Jenssen was asked to create a soundtrack using the director's instructions for the accompanying piano player. The results are very cinematic Ñ which is not that easy to accomplish. Eerie atmospheres, dominated by synthesizers this time, are interwoven with snippets of speech. In this project the music paradoxically moves into both more conventional techno domains, with the return of pulse, even constructed linear beats in "City Wakes Up" and "Ballerina," and electro-acoustics verging on musique concr?te ("Manicure"). "Freeze-Frames," with its short looped samples acting like a gallery of half-remembered images, provides the highlight. This second disc also contains two bonus tracks from the Substrata sessions, previously available only on the Japanese edition. "The Eye of the Cyclone" and "Endurium" are the most beat-driven music of the whole set, clearly club-oriented (especially in the first case). One easily understands why they were left off the original album. [Francois Couture]

Exposé Magazine:

The original 1997 release of Substrata is a classic of the ambient genre, literally redefining it in some respects. It is part ambient music, part talking and environmental noise, all with Geir Jenssen's typical Norwegian touches. You can practically hear the ice floes. His music seems to personify cold, and yet there is organic beauty that lends a sense of warmth as well. Substrata 2 is a remastered version of the original disc, plus an entirely new second disc for most listeners, with the exception of some bonus tracks that appeared on the Japanese version of the first Substrata release. The rest is a soundtrack specifically composed by Jenssen to accompany a Russian silent film from 1929 entitled Man With A Movie Camera by Dziga Vertov. The resulting soundworld is very much an extension of Substrata. In fact, some of the same spoken word clips appear on both discs. This lends a certain familiarity to the work. Part of the appeal for me of the original was that it was a totally new sound, unlike anything I'd heard before. This time, it's more like curling up on the couch with a familiar friend to chat by the fire. Bundle up and enjoy. Biosphere's unique brand of icy ambience is more sound than music, but the cool drones and hypnotic beats meld perfectly with the many abstract sound samples, as on his earlier works. [Phil Derby]

The Milk Factory (Norway):

Substrata, released in 1997, is one of the finest purely ambient record ever released. From his remote part of the world, Geir Jenssen, better known as Biosphere, has slowly become an artist in the true meaning of the word, as his work for art galleries or moviemakers took him to explore sound in a different way. Substrata was the result of this new direction, and Touch now releases a remastered version of this masterpiece, together with the soundtrack for Man With A Movie Camera, commissioned by the Tromso International Film Festival that same year. Substrata is inhabited by the vast spaces spreading across the artic region, endless nights and midnight sun, sub-zero temperatures and Northern lights. Never a record had been so intimate with nature, so close to the sounds, colours and smells of its environment. Jenssen emphasises the intensity of these elements by bringing them into his beat-less compositions, allowing them to take control of this new organic world. From time to time, more urban sounds come into the spectrum, when voice samples telling abstract stories, or a melancholic guitar offering support to an unlikely song emerge, but always, these components get swallowed in by the magma-like ambiences. The listener becomes a helpless witness of the beauty and cruelty of life. Jenssen's unusual vision, similar to Eno's,Ê In the year Substrata was released, Geir Jenssen was commissioned by the Tromso International Film Festival to write a new soundtrack for 1929 Man With A Movie Camera film, by Russian director Dziga Vertow. Jenssen worked with fellow Norwegian Per Martinsen, aka Mental Overdrive, from Vertow's instructions for musical accompaniment. Each musician worked on every other part. There are numerous similarities between Substrata and Jenssen's compositions for this soundtrack. Elaborating from common samples, he creates equally intense sound structures. However, Man With A Movie Camera is not as arid as Substrata. Field recordings collide with orchestras, accordions, beat patterns and samples from old French movies to create a multicoloured patchwork of incredible diversity.Ê The second CD composing this release also includes two tracks originally only available on the Japanese version of Substrata. If The Eye Of The Cyclone is an upbeat affair, evoking more Jenssen's composition on Microgravity or Patashnik, Endurium reaffirms that Biosphere is now turned towards cinemascope horizons and natural ambiences. As Geir Jenssen continues to work on various projects, all more or less related to music, Substrata 2 is a healthy definition of the work he has produced over the last five years. This second Biosphere release for Touch is an essential record. [5 stars]

Biosphere "Cirque" reviews

Ambient Trance (USA):

Better late than never... even though Cirque is circa 2000, I'm happy to give it full-length coverage; as always, Biosphere unleashes gently psychedelic auras of barely-tangible music... soft, sweet experimentalism. Wafting ephemera shifts beneath a muted rhythm as Nook & Cranny releases dreamy gusts of hypnotic loveliness. Phantasmal jungle drums pulse through the hovering sheens (and quiet radio voices) of Le Grande Dôme, another entrancing blend of intangible essences with not-quite-concrete percussion. The brief stuttering shimmers of Grandiflora (0:48) seep into the deeply thrumming expanse of beatless Black Lamb & Grey Falcon, where piano-esque notes tinkle and less-recognizable energies swell. Woozy blurs and sub-bass blurts course through When I Leave , joined by feminine conversation and cymbal taps. Iberia Eterea (6:38) throbs (again somehow drunkenly) as oddly-diffused chords pump in time, eventually revved up by more-proper percussion (and briefly allowing a rather different musical nature slip out). Ghostmachine resonance hovers into a heaven of Algae and Fungi part 1, where it washes like seafoam clouds which are surprisingly stirred by deeply thumping bassiness, which gradually murks-out into muted rumblings as the piece evolves into its thunderous, wondrous part 11. In 47.5 minutes/11 tracks, Biosphere builds otherworldly concertos of pillowy electronic mutations, sometimes which are driven by seductively subdued beatsystems. Lovely weirdness flows all around Cirque. [A]

Your Flesh, USA:

With Cirque, Geir Jenssen has released a record that effortlessly combines elements of ambient, techno, drum-n-bass, concrete and experimental styles that fuse to reveal an assured and remarkable musical voice. "Nook and Cranny" opens the disc like a harsh dream, with a slow soft build. "Le Grand Dome" begins a song cycle in which voices, panning left and right, float above the sonic bed; at one point a new age spiritualist is speaking of "Stairway to Heaven" and then about peace being a "matrix" which must come down from on high. Cosmic. With "Iberia Eterea" the momentum builds while "Moistened and Dried" sounds like impossibly cold droplets of falling and disappearing into a deep well. Scattered throughout are subtle orchestral flourishes and "Algae and Fungi (parts 1 and 2)" took me on a fast ride at night on a deserted roadway with fluorescent lights shooting by. Add to this the superlative packaging and design by Jon Wozencroft, and you have one of the most notable releases of the year. Stunning. [Wade Iversen]

Touching Extremes, net:

The album cover says it all: ice all over, blue sky, the idea of silence. Put the stylus on the vinyl and what you get is a classy, mesmerizing pot of loop-based new ambient bathed in reverb and delays, with some rhythms and voices here and there. Minute by minute, time runs out and you’ve come across various phases of detachment, flying high in your mind but never exiting your window actually. Notice the deep search into this - just apparently - simple music. Peculiar, in a class of its own. [MASSIMO RICCI]

Incursion:

Geir Jenssen presents 11 pieces of smooth soundscapes and muted, gentle rhythms in his latest release on Touch. Right from the opening sequences of this record I am drawn in. The quiet textures and mellow tones of the opener lead into the excellent track "Le Grand Dôme", in which a walking-pace rhythm kicks in with alluring effect. "When I Leave" offers a deeply submerged bass rhythm, "Iberia Eterea" enjoys some crisp jazz-house drumming and sampled woodwinds, leading into the glacial "Moistened & Dried". "Too Fragile to Walk On" closes the album with quiet wonder. Some deep, cool atmospheres and loops are sometimes reminiscent of 1997's Substrata on All Saints Records, but overall Cirque presents a thoroughly developed and distinct sound from his earlier work. Sounds and voices of the world weave in and out of the mix, giving the sense that the listener is both connected to that world and set apart from it at the same time; the listener is placed in that quiet town pictured on the back cover of the record, with Geir himself as guide, so close to the arctic circle and so far away from these voices that come to us through mysterious channels and frequencies, over radio waves and through the very space itself... Jenssen's music has an incredibly alluring quality that I find difficult to rationalise; I let this music wash over me completely and take over the space of my house. A superb achievement. [Richard di Santo]

Grooves:

Geir Jenssen left his first band, late eighties group Bel Canto, to develop his own musical direction after releasing two albums. He went on to record two techno albums and four singles as Bleep. Adopting the name Biosphere, a sealed dome space station experiment in self-sufficient living based in the Arizona desert, Jenssen released two increasingly successful ambient techno albums, Microgravity and Patashnik. After the single Novelty Waves from the Patashnik album was used in a Levi's jeans ad, rather than use the sound as a formula for future works, Jenssen moved away from it, his music becoming increasingly less like techno. The last three Biosphere albums, Polar Sequences and Birmingham Frequencies with Higher Intelligence Agency, and Substrata, the last real Biosphere album some three years ago, are relatively minimal and spacious, not completely devoid of beats but more ambient than techno.

Biosphere's music is hard to describe, it's far from the distorted noise or blippy electronic music that is popular in recent years. His music is more ambient, intense and structured. It is also hard to isolate any one given track to review as the music fits together wonderfully as a single piece, flowing naturally from track to track. Jenssen's music is referred to in the press and on his website as having an "arctic sound" and it is easy to appreciate why. The packaging of his albums commonly shows several images of iceflows and frozen landscapes and is printed in shades of blue, grey and white, reflecting the terrain he is familiar with and samples for his music. The word Cirque itself is defined as "a semicircular amphitheater shaped feature with steep walls carved by a glacier" or "can also be an adjective refering to the type of glacier that forms completely within such an amphitheater". This fascination or love of his surrounding terrain is reflected in Jenssen's music, conjuring up images of vast expanses of snow, ice and rock, the beauty such a sight is to witness and the inherent danger this can ultimately bring. The Cirque album itself is at least partly inspired by Chris McCandless, who in April 1992 hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness, only to be found dead four months later having made a tragic error with his food supply.

As with all of the Biosphere albums, the music draws you in and makes you want to listen and feel. Jenssen's work acts on a very emotional level, one that encourages you to drift away into a haze of images and scenes brought to you by the music, where spectacular beauty hides unseen danger. Intense and moving, but comforting and soothing at the same time.

VITAL (The Netherlands):

This is Geir Jenssen's first release in three years, and it is a perfect reminder that perhaps brevity and quality are inextricably linked. Not enough of a good thing is far more preferable than an excess of mediocrity, after all. Cirque is partly inspired by the story of Chris McCandless, who hitchhiked to Alaska in April 1992, went walkabout in the wilderness and, due to an error in his food supply, was found four months later, quite dead. The music is cinematic, even symphonic in structure. Single sounds occur throughout as thematic elements, delicately punctuating the melodic theme with the precision of a snowflake. There are acres of space: sounds heap up in harmonic order like conscious clouds assuming formation. Geo-thermal yawns and glacial rumbles close winters grate. Boreas, barely able to hold his breath, exhales soft, frosty clouds, and melting ice coruscates as cold slowly shuts its snap. Faraway floes turn turtle. The swing of spring music retunes the sky. Drops drip like Ligeti's metronomes, unwinding with each step the sun takes up its northern tropical staircase. The primordes awake - algae bubbles like the witches' sulphuric soup and lichen creeps like grey fingers up stony spines. Biology stirs in sleeping stumps, 'splaying green smudges. Hoof-smears, bird-chitter, morning stars. No trudge across the winterbound tundra, this. Rather a journey across unknown surfaces, some sheer, some sweet, all fierce and full of fight to guard their frailty.

Mojo (UK):

Fourth full album from ambient pioneer:

vinyl version contains killer locked-groove.

Coming to prominence with 1992's Microgravity - which along with the first couple of Aphex/Polygon Window CDs, defined the genre ambient - Geir Jenssen as Biosphere has made three of the '90s' best albums, culminating with last year's near beatless Substrata. The idea - as it always was thanks to Eno's On Land - is music as environment (reflecting, creating): working from his base in Tromso, Arctic Norway, Jenssen offers a polar, Apollonian exploration of the human psyche. Cirque is a perfectly constructed 47-minute sequence: cold clarity up against real depth of field, synth cycles dissolving into sudden moments of sonic revelation that sound like a waking dream - try the first 20 seconds of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. (And if you think that's pretentious - your loss). Inspired by the story of a young American, Chris McCandless, who walked alone into the Alaskan wilderness and perished, Cirque balances the tightrope between warmth and unease, resolving into a moon melody that leaves you a peace. What a good record! [Jon Savage].

Bizarre (UK):

Quite, quite beautiful. Deep and lush, this sounds warm and enveloping while occasionally hinting at the sub-zero temperatures of Geir Jensen's Arctic home in Tromso, Norway. But that's not all: there is flow, there is edge, there is tension. Immerse yourself, then float higher than the surface. Jenssen uses the proceeds of his recordings to finance mountaneering trips and he deserves a goody on the back of this disc.

J-B André, Les Inrockuptibles, Paris, France

Biosphere : Cirque Touch/Fnac Import

Tele :funken : A Collection of Ice Cream Vans Vol1 Domino/Labels

"Quel désaccord avec le monde m'a fait me retrouver là" murmure cet explorateur polaire français récupéré par le norvégien, cartographe et poète incontournable de l'arctique en musique Gerd Jenssens. Découvert avec Bel Canto, son projet Biosphere révélé au plus grand nombre grâce à une pub levis pour la poche à capote, sa musique reprend un tour des plus excitants avec son nouvel album Cirque. Lui dont les hymnes technos et les morceaux d'ambiance mordants révélaient la complaisance pour le froid a réussi a apprivoiser son terrain d'inspiration. De lieu de mort, la glace devient une terre promise avec de la neige autour. Déformés par la distance et les échos, ces sons dub et techno nous emmènent pour une épopée sans réelle issue dans un univers matelassé peint en connaisseur. Chaque année qui passe nous voit écouter des albums allant toujours plus loin pour donner à la musique électronique les pulsations de la vie, mais il faudra sans doutes des années à la masse pour dépasser Cirque, disque parfait. Ce sont aussi les latitudes extrêmes qui ont fait de ce premier véritable album de Tele :funken ce qu'il est. Découvert au détour d'un disque douteux ou il remixait le portrait de Flying Saucer Attack, on avait appris à aimer la délicatesse de ce Tele :tubbie allemand que l'on croyait issue de la même portée que Isan et Plone. Au hasard des rencontres, il échoue chez Pram à Birningham, ville dans laquelle il faut beaucoup d'imagination pour voir l'herbe verte et les petits lapins sortir du béton. Ce stage en milieu urbain mené en compagnie de spécialistes du rêve décalé l'amène à réviser ses idées, à corser sa musique en la teintant de sons empruntés aux ténors de l'électronique à poil dru comme Autechre et Scanner, les rockeurs plus ou moins hallucinogènes de Tortoise et Spacemen 3. Voilà tous ces grands noms conviés sur cette Collection of Ice Cream Vans aux pneus sales - tous garés devant un jardin d'enfants. C'est cette fraîcheur jointe à un réel talent pour nous faire revivre certaines terreurs enfantines avec deux ou trois blips qui font de l'album de Tele :funken un disque qui est au For Beginner Piano de Plone ce que Cendrillon est à l'Etrange Noël de Monsieur Jack.

re:mote induction (UK):

It has now been three years since the last Biosphere album Substrata, with the intervening period now being shown to have not been stationary for Geir Jenssen. The latest Biosphere album, Cirque, shows definite progression in many ways, whilst remaining undoubtedly identifiable as the work of Jenssen. At the same time the progression between the two albums is quite stark, especially in an A-B comparison of the two.

A big part of Jenssen's work has always been the emotive nature of the music. The ability to conjure image and convey almost tangible feelings of being in the environment of his music. Previously the music has been easily linked with this environment and intimation of an arctic climate was undeniable. With Cirque this link to the desolate tundra is not so clear although the music is no less emotive. To my ear, the sound of Biosphere seems to be thawing with this release. The timbres of the sound still remain cool but the sounds have now become more liquid in their nature. This theme is continued within the artwork of the album with the photography of the booklet often depicting bodies of water, temperate landscapes and the edge of ice against water.

Attempting to select individual tracks from this release for discussion is a difficult task and I would even go so far as to say that judging any single track by itself is less than satisfying. This is a classic case of the whole being more than the sum of it's part. The individual songs are almost dull and pointless, lacking any strong direction or commitment that allows them to be enjoyable by themselves. However, once these are placed into the context of the album and allowed to merge with the other tracks the flow becomes very strong and it becomes a pleasure to sit back and let the mood of the album lead you. Close examination of the album does reveal a more upbeat feeling than of the previous album. Ambiences to this are not as bleak, containing a more organic sway and the feeling of movement is enhanced through a greater presence percussion.

The structural aspects of Cirque also aid to the generation of emotion and mood on this release. Progression through the album is slow but steady, taking time to allow aspects of the music to evolve and fully express themselves. Toward the end of the album the build has become quite definite and it is only with the sharp counterpoint of Algae & Fungi Part 11 to the ultimate track Too Fragile To Walk On that the speed of of the former gives way to the soundscaped conclusions of the latter.

As may have been apparent throughout this review I have enjoyed this release a great deal and view this as being another strong release from Geir Jenssen. In my opinion this album has no weak tracks to sully any feelings toward it but the need to listen to the whole album to get full enjoyment makes this a release that is not for everyone. In many ways though, this makes for an excellent introduction to the Biosphere sound for those new to the band as it stradles the sheer ambiences of recent time with a hint of the more upbeat sound of the early material.

The City Newspaper, Rochester, NY, USA

The sun doesn't shine much during the winter months in Tromsø, the small Norwegian seaport 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle that Geir Jenssen calls home. Of course, that doesn't explain why the electronic music he records as Biosphere is so visual, evoking images of far-flung glacial formations, moving at feature film speed through liquid beats and warm, deeply human sound sculptures. Biosphere has come a long way from the ambient techno it started out as. (The 1995 cut "Novelty Waves" served as the soundtrack for a Levi's ad.) This music is much slower, textured, almost "environmental" in its sound and deliberate development. The record can be played as one continuous, 47-minute sequence, with each track gracefully flowing into the next. You'll find rhythm, but its hiding behind a haze of synth cycles and blurred sub-zero bass that, together, weave a graceful, liquid-metallic sheen across the music's surface. Cirque is inspired partly by Into the Wild, the 1992 book that documents the story of Chris McCandless, who walked alone into the Alaskan wilderness and died four months later. Like Jon Krakauer's book, Cirque presents tension between comfort and discomfort, peace and unease. Far from self-indulgence, Cirque is a deeply focused and fertile project, teeming with detail. Pay close attention."Cirque" and other Biosphere releases are available on the Web at . [Chad Oliveiri]

TOP Magazine (UK):

Cirque du Soleil by Pete Lawrence

Three years after its release, BIOSPHERE's 'Substrata' is already being recognised as one of the all time greats of deep electronica. It is his acute sense of musical spaciousness and suspense that perhaps enables Norway's Geir Jenssen to create such powerful musical statements - a quality possessed by very few musicians and only the best mood manipulators. LTJ Bukem, Global Communication and Another Fine Day come to mind. (no they don't! - JW.). On 'Cirque' [Touch]*****, Biosphere's music quietly demands time and attention. No use looking to chalk up quick, hedonistic pleasure points here; your best approach is to slow down to its pace. It's best analysed not in terms of its separate tracks but as a totally immersive entity with the incidental details of spoken word, musical fragmentation and voice-over blending into the script. No escapist new age fantasy but a real life drama, the beauty is in the discomfort and the danger, as well as the moments of blissful freefall. A perfectly imperfect union of nature and technology for the summer.

Publico (Portugal):

Cirque (8/10)

Touch, distri. Matéria-Prima

Da pop gelado de baunilha dos Bel Canto às primeiras sess'es de ambient tecno e chill out levadas a cabo sob a designação Biosphere, o percurso musical do norueguês Geir Jenssen tem sido uma constante aproximação ao P'lo Norte. Para já, estabeleceu a sua base criativa num estúdio situado a 400 milhas a norte do Círculo Polar Árctico, para aí, alternadamente, prospectar sob a superfície do gelo em busca de sinais de vida e apontar o telesc'pio para a escuridão gélida do céu, em busca de frequências alienígenas. "Cirque" é mais um passo na direcção de uma música que definitivamente rompeu com o compasso tecno para se localizar no centro de uma região povoada pelos espíritos do Norte. A novela que serviu de inspiração a este álbum, "Into the Wild", de Jon Krakauer, a hist'ria das viagens pela América do Norte de um explorador em busca do autoconhecimento que finalmente acaba por morrer no Alasca, na mais completa solidão, ilustra na perfeição a demanda de Geir Jenssen da definitiva banda sonora para o cérebro, que, quanto mais gelado, mais e mais coloridas alucinaç'es consegue produzir. Comparado com o suave batuque astral dos Can em "Future Days", "Cirque" pode igualmente ser encarado como uma espécie de visão da fauna e flora microsc'pica, substrato invisível da selva que, mais acima, Jon Hassell desbravou com a sua música do "quarto mundo". As batidas são quase subliminares, de água e poalha de gelo, as vagas electr'nicas avançam lenta mas inexoravelmente como um gigantesco glaciar em fase de degelo. A música de "Cirque" é tão bela como as imagens da Natureza que a acompanham no respectivo livrete. Tão bela como as metamorfoses subtis de uma aurora boreal. [Fernando Magalhães]

The Sheffield Telegraph (UK):

Martin Lilleker writes:

Album of the year by a mile already. It's not pop music but chilled out instrumental grooves and sounds which reflect the space and climate of Biosphere's base in the Arctic, Tromso, Norway. It was inspired by the story of a man who hitchhiked to Alaska, walked alone into the wilderness, and was found dead after a tragic error with his food supply. Beautiful and intense.

The Wire (UK):

The word 'Ambient' might now be a fairly lazy and degraded label, but it still feels like the best quickfix adjective to slap onto Cirque. Though it lists 11 titles, the album sounds more like one seamless piece. Leisurely, pulsing, eerie and seductive, it locates itself at the more reflective end of electronica. A cynic might label it chill-out music with an ecological gloss - indeed, South Park's Cartman would brand it 'tree-hugging hippy crap'. I guess it is, but of a distinctly superioir kind.

The packaging alone would enrage Cartman: the CD booklet shuns words for a series of landscape photographs featuring snow, water, rocks, sunsets, mountains, even a stone circle. It that's a recipe for eco-whimsy, the music itself is stronger and more subtle, tracing mesmerising geographies of sound. Nothing leaps out and assaults you; rather, eveything entices and lingers, with gently insistent rhythms and sparingly melodic chords draped around field recordings (running water, birdsong, the occasional snippet of anonymous interviews).

Geir Jenssen (aka Biosphere) was partly inspired by the story of Chris McCandless, an explorer whose solo trek across Alaska ended in his untimely death, but Cirque doesn't require narrative support. In the best sense of the the term, this is abstract music, rooted in a certain relationship to natural phenomena but otherwise not shackled to any over-schematic meaning. It draws a little on on early 90s crossovers where Ambient nuzzled up against dance (Jam & Spoon, KLF's pastoral gambits, The Orb), but it's not in any way dated. [Andy Medhurst]

Weekly Dig (USA):

Unfortunately, around the mid-1990s ambient's reputation took a tremendous beating, with many calling it nothing more than an evolved form of cheesy new age music. While I understand that there is a tremendous amount of ambient that does evoke shades of Narada and other notable new age artists, there have been some ambient works that continue to leave an undeniable mark on the music world. For example, Aphex Twin's Vol. 2 - Selected Ambient Works, a brilliant compilation featuring Richard James' most notable ambient works, still has a mystifying effect on me, as does Shuffle 358's Optimal EP, which was possibly 1999's greatest undiscovered secret.

Recently I received Biosphere, a stunningly beautiful ambient release containing a mixture of etherealness and spacy downtempo grooves. This 11-track compilation at times shuffles back and forth between tribal percussions, trip-hop beats, drum and bass licks and glacial bleeps and bloops. The album is inundating with peaceful overtures, allowing one to focus and relax without ever feeling overtly bored with the background music being played. That is one of ambient's biggest criticisms, that it is either too boring or too similar to all of the other releases in the genre. Cirque doesn't suffer this fate; in fact it overcomes this as an extreme level of uniqueness. Simply put, I have desk drawers full of releases that are completely uninteresting and forgettable. However, this one avoids the trap. If you are a fan of ambient, I strongly urge you to check out this release, as it has a musicality that completely drawers you in. Definitely a keeper. (Craig Kapilow)

Motion/State 51 (UK):

The long-awaited follow-up to Substrata, by many (the undersigned included) considered to be the finest ambient album of the 1990s. After releasing brilliant remixes of the Norwegian electronic pioneer Arne Nordheim (Nordheim Transformed, together with Deathprod), a retrospective of poppier remix work (Biosystems), and a second collaborative site performance with Higher Intelligence Agency (Birmingham Frequencies), Geir Jenssen aka Biosphere returns to the Arctic ambience which he has made into a genre all its own. With patient, consummate craft, his deceptively simple recipe of quiet electronic loops and disembodied, sampled voices and instruments - seemingly plucked out of the microwaves coursing through the long Norwegian night from his studio in Tromsø. - lends that actually-existing geographic place its own, conceptually fascinating, imagined soundtrack. A somewhat forbidding environment - a woman's voice warns, "When I leave, don't follow". Wise advice, perhaps, since the last track is called "Too Fragile to Walk On". But the surface of this soundworld is anything but thin; and Cirque is a source of warmth whose presence one would be foolish to quit. Huddle down and turn your back on the winter night outside.

OOR (The Netherlands):

Biosphere is een overlevende van de ambient-rage van een jaar of 6 terug, een ambacht die hij nog steeds als geen ander beheerste. De muziek is als de foto's (van onder andere zijn Noorse woonplaats Tromso) op de hoes en in het boekje : ijzig, desolaat, statisch en op zijn best van een beklemmende schoonheid. Maar af en toe kleeft er iets gemakzuchtigs aan de ambient formule van Geir Jenssen, die zijn gebruik van 'veldopnamen' van veel creativiteit blijk geeft, maar de mist in gaat als hij ergens een stijf en plichtmatig drum 'n' bass-beatje uit het doosje trekt. Zijn muziek drijft op keurig afgeronde hoeken en dat is bij Mika Vainio wel anders. Ook zijn nieuwe roept ietwat gemengde gevoelens op, maar dan om omgekeerde

redenen. De helft van het Finse duo Pan Sonic trekt kale geluidsvlakten op, die van een stekelige hoekigheid blijken. Klanken verschieten subtiel van kleur en richting, een proces dat aandachtige beluistering verdient en dan voor het eigenlijke drama in de muziek blijkt te zorgen. Vainio is echter iets te streng in de leer, wat Kajo tot een zwaar verteerbare aangelegenheid maakt. Maar om zijn onstuitbare exploratiedrang is Vainio me net iets liever dan Biosphere. [Jacob Haagsma]

ROCK SOUND (UK):

Geir Jensen's music has always been about remoteness and distance. Based in his home town of Tromso, situated in northern Norway, 200 miles above the Arctic Circle, surrounded by glaciers and imposing fjords, and plunged into total darkness for three months in winter, 'Cirque' is very much a product of this environment, its slowly enfolding polar ambience far removed from the supercharged techno of 'Novelty Waves' that brought him to the fringe of mainstream success. Biosphere is unusual in its instantly recognisable style, an ability to transport the listener to a totally different landscape and a deep sense of spatial awareness that puts you in no doubt why Jensen is in such demand for film soundtracks and art installation work. 'Cirque', literally an amphitheatre-shaped crevice cut by a glacier, is inspired in part by the story of Chris McCandless, an amateur explorer whose trek into the Alaskan wastes ended in tragedy. That's not to say the music itself is cold; unlike similarly inspired composer Thomas Koner whose Arctic-inspired 'Teimo' gripped like frostbite, Biosphere's is enveloped in mist with the Northern lights flashing wildly in the distance. From the moody rhythm gymnastics of 'Iberian Eterea' to the snowstorm flurry techno of 'Algae and Fungi', via 'Black Lamb & Grey Falcon''s ghost orchestra, 'Cirque''s windswept abandonment leaves you in no doubt of the benefit of Jensen's artistic hibernation. At one point a disembodied voice intones solemnly "When I leave, you'll follow". Too true. [Neil Gardner]

gg (net, USA):

Geir Jenssen's output toward the latter end of the '90s includes a soundtrack, a remix collection, a reinterpretation of Arne Nordheim's ageless electro-acoustic works, and collaborations with HIA's Bobby Bird. CIRQUE is the first volume of undiluted Biosphere since 1997's SUBSTRATA. The exquisite CIRQUE was inspired by the harrowing story of Chris McCandles, a young man whose self-determined survival quest in the Alaskan wilderness ended tragically.

Like the best Biosphere, CIRQUE captures the grandeur and danger of the ice-bound North. Elegant ambient loops and craggy beats call to mind miles of frozen tundra and boundless blue sky. It's apparent how McCandles was seduced by the siren song of Alaska's natural mystery. As the listener is led through the layered landscape, accumulating accents suggest the mirage-like shadow play of sunlight on snow ("Iberia Eterea"), the arrayed flight of furred and feathered onlookers ("Black Lamb & Grey Falcon"), the imposing presence of mountains and weather fronts, and the mesmerizing underfoot crunch of packed permafrost. Sampled wireless transmissions and emphatic bass undulations impart a menacing character to CIRQUE's aural Arctic, and the elegiac closer ("Too Fragile to Walk On") serves as a sad reminder that Man's spirit is always subject to his physical frailties.

XLR8R (USA):

If you think ambient music is just too mid-90s, think again: Biosphere, who for a decade now has designed the blueprint for resonant, ambient techno, returns with two releases proving the genre's continuing relevance....On the masterful Cirque, Jenssen updates the Arctic dread of 1997's Substrata, warming up otherwise icy climes with orchestral loops and multi-hued sunlight. Drifting and rumbling, these glacial tracks host scraps of songs and narratives frozen inside them, like the personal effects of a lost traveler trapped and carried down the mountain to the sea. Jenssen and Bird proved that music can craft a world of itself; and each one promises to hold you rapt in its microcosmic perfection. (Philip Sherburne)

Grooves (USA):

Geir Jenssen left his first band, late '80s group Bel Canto, to develop his own musical direction after releasing two albums. He went on to record two techno albums and four singles as Bleep. Adopting the name Biosphere from the sealed, domed experiment in self-sufficient living based in the Arizona desert, Jenssen released two increasingly successful ambient techno albums, Microgravity and Patashnik. After the single "Novelty Waves" from Patashnik was used in a Levi Jean's ad, rather than use the sound as formula for future works, Jenssen moved away from it, his music becoming increasingly less like techno. The last three Biosphere albums, Polar Sequences and Birmingham Frequencies with Higher Intelligence Agency, and Substrata, the last real Biosphere album some 3 years ago, are relatively minimal and spacious, not completely devoid of beats but more ambient than techno.

It's hard to isolate any one given track to review as the music fits together wonderfully as a single piece, flowing naturally from tract to track. Jenssen's music is referred to in the press and on his website as having an "arctic sound", and it is easy to appreciate why. The packaging of his albums commonly shows several images of iceflows and frozen landscapes and is printed in shades of blue, grey and white, reflecting the terrain he is familiar with and samples for his music, the word cirque itself is defined as "a semicircular amphitheatre-shaped feature with steep walls carved by a glacier". This fascination or love of his surrounding terrain is reflected in Jenssen's music, conjuring up images of vast expanses of snow, ice and rock, the beauty such a sight is to witness and the inherent danger this can ultimately bring. The Cirque album itself is at least partly inspired by Chris McCandless, who in April 1992 hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness, only to be found dead 4 months later having made a tragic error with his food supply.

Jenssen's work acts on a very emotional level, one that encourages you to drift away into a haze of images and scenes brought to you by the music, where spectacular beauty hides unseen danger. Intense and moving, but comforting and soothing at the same time. (Paul Lloyd)

Exclaim (Canada):

A cirque is a bowl-shaped hollow situated on the side of a mountain. More than just a title, it's the most appropriate metaphor to describe the philosophy behind Biosphere's music - that in order to climb higher, you must first go deeper into the sound as well as your senses. The 11 tracks on Cirque evoke this kind of meditative excursion. They're a series of soundscapes progressing with tremendous subtlety, colour and passion. The album tends to operate in ambient modes, but Biosphere's production style de-emphasises the electronic-ness of it all. Low-attack synths move like oceans and 808s step like footsteps in the forest. The highlights of the album include "Iberia Eterea" and "Algae Fungi (parts 1 and 11)", with their frenetic rhythms rushing like rapids against the layers. With such vivid scenes in the tracks, Cirque is one of the finest pieces of chill-out music to come out in years. (Prasad Bidaye)

Humo! (Belgium):

Het is weer zomer. Wat zou Geir Jenssen aan het doen zijn in de Nooit Meer Slapen-stad Tromso? Het is er 23 en een half uur per dag licht (euh, nu toch). De zanger van Noordkaap ging er op zoek naar zichzelf. Ik denk niet dat er veel gebeurt. Dat komt goed uit, want op de platen van Biosphere gebeurt ogenschijnlijk nog minder. Biosphere is muziek die niet nog snel wil reserveren in een trendy sushi-restaurant. Biosphere blijft thuis. We roepen dan kluizenaar en loner. En als we er ook electronische muziek bij krijgen zonder blote Ibiza-borsten en Frankfurt bockwurstbeats, denken we aan mensen die hun cd's laten opstaan voor de katten als ze naar de bakker gaan. Waarom trouwens niet? En okee, Biosphere is ambient. Als er een boeddhistisch klooster in de straat was, zaten we misschien daar en niet onder onze koptelefoon. 't Zijn cosmic lovegrooves. Passons! Geir Jenssen woont vlakbij Rusland. De naam Biosphere ligt voor de hand. Biosphere is een ruimtekolonie op aarde in het midden van Arizona, een oefening in leven in afzondering, het zoveelste god game van de wetenschap. Ook de muziek van Biosphere blijft achter glas, en bekijkt de wereld vanop een afstand. Noem het laf en luister verder naar Slipknot. Of noem het moedig, draai hét meesterwerk van het jaar ('Silence is sexy' van Einstürzende Neubauten) nog eens om, en kom dan gerust binnen. Weet nog dat Biosphere veel minder met gesproken samples uitpakt dan op de jaren negentig-klassiekers 'Patashnik' en 'Microgravity', dat er tracks zijn die 'Algae and fungi part 1' én 'Algae and fungi part 11' heten, dat de eerste beat langer op zich laat wachten dan bij een concert van The Orb, en dat 'Cirque' is opgedragen aan Chris McCandless, een man die de eenzaamheid opzocht in de wildernis van Alaska, wiens lijk werd teruggevonden naast een S.O.S.-briefje, en zonder wie Jon Krakauer's boek 'Into the wild' nooit zou zijn geschreven. We zeggen het maar: Biosphere is donkerder en minder soft dan op het eerste gehoor zou kunnen blijken. Wij zijn bijvoorbeeld ooit aan deze trip begonnen door de sample 'It's rather like fairyland isn't it/except for the smell of gasoline and burning flesh'. En ja, u hebt gelijk, die muziek in die zwartwit-jeansbroekenreclame met die condoom kwam van Biosphere. Toen maakte Geir Jenssen nog een klein beetje techno. Dat heeft hij op 'Cirque' helemaal afgeleerd. File under: absolutely new age-free advanced ambient machine music. Op 27 oktober in een schouwburg in Antwerpen. (gvn)

Alternative Press (USA):

Here's a challenge: Try to keep your eyes open through to the end of this disc. It's impossible. From the opening strains of "Nook & Cranny", with its distant synth refrains and soft fizzy beats, to the haunting last gasp of clipped flutes on "Too Fragile to Walk On", Biosphere wraps the listener's ears in sound as lulling as that heard in the womb. To call this music "techno" does it a great injustice. Biopshere (a.k.a. Norway's Geir Jenssen) uses "real" instruments to flesh out his mostly beatless sound, such as guitar, piano, woodwinds and strings. Combine this with a skill for crafting drifting machine sounds not rivaled since Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works Vol. II, and what follows is warm and comforting, belying the album's glacial artwork. The information accompanying this disc warns of lurking in paradise for too long, but if there is danger awaiting listeners on the other side of Cirque, may they die blissfully ignorant. [Jason Olariu]

Outburn (USA):

Biosphere have foregone their previous reliance on vocal samples for a stricter ambient approach, which should make them more accessible to a wider audience. While the format is typical laid back ambient, they have mixed in subtle samples that give the music an extra depth not found in most discs of the genre. One track has water sounds and another has crunching sound reminiscent of old vinyl. Listeners who chill out will find themselves drawn happily into the details upon repeated listenings.

Sequences (USA):

Following in the footsteps of the excellent "Substrata," Geir Jenssen has again served up a tasty selection of his unique brand of ambient morsels. Eleven brief tracks serve as a musical documentary, at least in part, to the true story of a man who hitchhiked to Alaska, ventured off into the wilderness, and was found dead four months later. Before I heard this story, I still found "Cirque" to be a fascinating listen, and even more so afterward. Like "Substrata," "Cirque" is filled with relatively short, rich pieces, mixing assorted sound samples with unusual musical textures. Unlike its predecessor, a noticeable beat runs through much of "Cirque." In most cases, the beat trudges along, the musical equivalent of the lost traveler ambling step by step through the icy wilderness. Each track tends to be repetitive loops, used for maximum hypnotic effect. Jenssen loves to use a wide array of sounds to achieve the desired ambient chill. "Le Grand Dome" has French voices in the background. "Black Lamb & Grey Falcon" has a simple, abrupt piano phrase which repeats endlessly, surrounded by oboe-like samples, drones, and static like one might hear on a vinyl record. "When I Leave" has a very short, staccato piano note which pulses every few seconds throughout. Ambling bass lines and more interesting vocal samples run through it, but the piano is a little too jarring for my taste. More successful is "Iberea Eterea," with a similar pulse, crisp cymbals, and lots of atmosphere. In the end, it seems that's what Biosphere recordings are about - atmosphere. "Moistened and Dried" is just going to sound like sonic wallpaper to some, mostly just dripping water, but I found it fascinating. This is the sort of true experimentation that, in the wrong hands, would just sound like self-indulgent noodling. Somehow, Jenssen manages to always pull it off deftly. "Algae & Fungi" is surprisingly accessible, comparatively speaking, with its buildup of musical intensity as a deep, insistent beat evolves, then devolves into dark, distant echoed rhythms in the latter half of this two-part piece. Unusual flute samples in "Too Fragile to Walk On" make a beautiful closer. Similar and yet quite distinct from "Substrata," "Cirque" offers another unique view into Jenssen's musical mind. Strange, but stirring and compelling.

Wreck This Mess, Amsterdam

"Cirque" on Touch is a great disc from a great generator of beautiful sounds. It is pure northern sound which to me is the 'polar' opposite of say, Berber / Moroccan / Sahara music but in many ways the stark meditative waves and horizontals come back to the point where they are very similar. Apparently Biosphere = Geir Jenssen. He rejected the acclaim he was receiving for previous discs and chose the hermetic over hype or 'mountain climbing over train spotting'. What is beyond ambient? Well, speculative - exploration, music that unravels itself. Music that not only rides and caresses a surface but penetrates it until we get some sense of what its dimensions and intentions are. It is about exploration rather than mimicking. Anyway, it is inspired in part by the story of Chris McCandless who "in April 1992 hitchhiked to Alaska and walked alone into the wilderness, only to be found dead 4 months later having made a tragic error with his food supply." Definitely one of my favorites. [Bart Plategna]

Live Review (Norway):

NORDLYS, (Norwegian newspaper) 29 SEPTEMBER 2000

Technological Shamanism

For the first time since the Polar Music Festival in 1995 Geir Jenssen aka Biosphere gave a concert in his hometown. And what a concert! An evening with Biosphere is, in fact, so much more than a normal concert experience. And Geir Jenssen, aka Biosphere, is so much more than an ordinary artist. With his glasses, laptop and arsenal of samplers and sound modules he reminds us of something between a clerk and a space scientist when he is sitting behind his desk in the centre of the stage at Driv. Jenssen led the audience at Driv into a world of ambient sound-scapes and hypnotising beats that we did not want to end. He created powerful atmospheres and took them down again exactly when we expected an explosion. But Wednesday's concert was not only Geir Jenssen. With the performance artist Jony Easterby joining the team, this evening became so much more than just music. Biosphere's sound-scapes were often just an accompaniment to Easterby´s installations. Melting icicles dripping onto miked up mirrors, sparklers patched through effect modules. Even the insides of an electric iron were heated and used as a sound and light source. Stones were hanging from the roof oscillating hypnotically over the stage and creating an almost religious atmosphere in the hall as their shadows moved back and forth. The crowd experienced probably this year's most beautiful and most rewarding performance this evening. Let's hope we don't have to wait another five years before it happens again.

[Håvard Stangnes]

tijd cultuur (Belgium):

Arctische weidsheid Met het album Cirque dat sinds dit voorjaar in de winkel ligt, presenteert de Noor Geir Jenssen of Biosphere een glooiende ambientplaat waar ritmes slechts in kleine straaltjes door een arctische duisternis dringen. Zaterdag zakt de muzikant/ componist uit Tromso, een dorp 800 kilometer boven de poolcirkel, af naar Antwerpen voor een concert in CC Luchtbal. Geir Jenssen ligt met zijn minimale doch melodieuze soundscapes aan de voet van de nieuwe ambientbeweging begin jaren negentig. Biospheres eerste soloalbum Microgravity verschijnt, na een jarenlange collaboratie in de cult popgroep Bel Canto en het acidproject Bleep, in 1992 bij het Gentse R&S Records. Een revelatie. De klankeigenheid van Brian Eno's klassiek geworden Ambient 1: Music For Airports uit 1978 - een plaat die voortbouwt op Pierre Schaeffers musique concr?te - vertaalt Jenssen naar een repetitieve structuur; de minimal music en de destijds vanuit Detroit oprukkende techno-underground in navolging. Opvallend is de aanwezigheid van kouwelijke geluiden als gierende wind of afbrokkelend ijs op Microgravity. Maar paradoxaal krijgen die bij Biosphere een warme melodische context. Sinds zijn eerste release als Biosphere werkte Jenssen met een groot aantal muzikanten - Deathprod en Higher Intelligence Agency als voorbeelden - en verschenen drie albums onder de naam Biosphere. Dit voorjaar voegde de muzikant/ componist een vierde aan dat rijtje toe. Na vormexperimenten met beats laat Jenssen die op Cirque opnieuw haast volledig - in sommige nummers schuilt een ijle streep drum 'n' bass of een echo van een rechtlijnige drumloop - achter zich. Wel worden samples van akoestische instrumenten als violen of spaarzame toetsen piano repetitief ingezet. Die elementen maken dat Cirque ruimte ademt: opnieuw schildert Biosphere sonoor zijn geboortestreek, het arctische Tromso. Geir Jenssen: "Eigenlijk stigmatiseer ik mezelf met dit soort muziek te maken. Alleen het feit dat ik noordelijk woon, leverde in het verleden gekke verhalen op. Zo zou ik bijvoorbeeld enkel werken als de zon onder gaat en hier in Tromso is het s winters zeer lang donker. Ik houd van deze streek, in de eerste plaats omdat ik er geboren ben. En in de tweede plaats omdat ik van de natuur, de bergen, het ijs en voornamelijk van de goedlachse bevolking geen afstand kan nemen. De mentaliteit staat hier ver van de gewone wereld en de drukte van de grootstad. Dat terwijl de faciliteiten nagenoeg dezelfde zijn, Tromso heeft bijvoorbeeld een universiteit, een aantal cinema s en theaters." Voor Cirque inspireerde Jenssen zich deels op Into the Wild van John Krakauer. Dat boek vertelt het geromantiseerde verhaal van Chris McCandless, een man die in 1992 naar Alaska trok om er in de wildernis rond te trekken. Vier maanden werd zijn lijk gevonden, na onderzoek bleek dat er wat was misgegaan met zijn voedselvoorraad. Jenssen: "Zelf trek ik vaak de natuur in en het boek van Krakauer bevatte veel van de gevoelens die ik op zulke momenten beleef. In de perstekst staat echter dat ik me liet inspireren door het boek, wat slechts ten dele klopt: het bevestigde mijn bevindingen eerder dan een concept voor de plaat aan te reiken. Een veel belangrijkere inspiratie is mijn dagelijkse omgeving. Die werkt meteen op je in. Toen ik eind jaren tachtig een jaar in het stresserende Belgi‘ leefde, klonk mijn werk bijvoorbeeld helemaal anders (de acidreleases als Bleep, nvdr). Ik heb dus tijd en rust nodig om te componeren en dat kan enkel in Tromso. Voor Cirque kostte het vier jaar." Sinds kort verzorgt Jenssen zijn eigen hoezen. In de booklet van Cirque exposeert hij eigen foto's, samen met Bjorn Arntzen en Jon Wozencroft (de excellente huisfotograaf van het Touch label, een man die een keer natuur en stad tot kringelende vormen abstraheert en een andere keer een woonwijk tot een gealieneerde buurt transformeert). De verstilde landschappen van droogstaande meren en weidse bergformaties passen perfect bij het geluid van de plaat. "Ik fotografeer ongeveer twintig jaar en wil me meer op de relatie tussen beeld en geluid toeleggen. Op dit moment werk ik aan een reeks composities, ingegeven door de ervaring van een brug in het landschap. Fragmenten daarvan zijn in het museum voor actuele kunst in Roskilde onder het multimediale - foto's, video, performance en geluid - project Krydsfelt ge‘xposeerd. In de toekomst staan meer samenwerkingen met andere kunstenaars op mijn verlanglijst." (Ive Stevenheydens)

The Milk Factory (Norway):

Geir Jenssen's career started with fellow Norwegian band Bel Canto. But soon, it appeared that Geir was to explore other grounds, and he left to release his first solo album under the name Bleep. And then, it was Biosphere. A name he would appropriate to make people dance. The high point of his commercial success came in the shape of the ubiquitous Novelty Waves, taken from his second album as Biosphere, Patashnik, and most famous for being the soundtrack of a Levi's advert. But this sudden exposure didn't suit the man. He moved back to his native Tromso, reflected on his fame, and decided it was time to move on. And he did. The next proper Biosphere album would take three years to come out. And Substrata was the antithesis of Patashnik. It was an album of intense atmospheres, of long cold nights and hazy days, using pure sounds, unusual samples and no beats at all. Cirque is different. It is not a rebellious album, more of a reflective work. Organic sounds, pieces of conversations put together and, on some tracks, drums, cohabit in the most harmonious manner. It is almost an extension of his work with Higher Intelligence Agency, or a continuation more like. Cirque is to perfection what Champagne is to alcohol: a must. There are certainly no other artists like Geir Jenssen. The transformation from pop to dance to art act has taken him over ten years, but he has accomplished the journey with pride and determination. Cirque is the result of it. Not the end of the road, more the beginning of something major. [5 stars]