Substrata 2

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! - Side Line

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 conr?te 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. - Chad Oliveiri Rochester City News

'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 The Wire

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