Bleep

Many talk about 2006’s Dropsonde as Biosphere’s jazz album. There is certainly something to this - while Geir Jenssen’s project has long been a byword for ambient music of rare beauty, some of the tracks on Dropsonde certainly have a jazz inflicted pulse to them.

However, these new influences do not indicate a complete shift away from Biosphere’s previous output. Rather, cuts like ‘Birds Fly By Flapping Their Wings’ instead subsume looped grooves into the same atmosphere of wintry beauty that one detects on Biosphere classics such as Substrata. It’s a soundworld that brings to mind an even more cerebral take on the micro-house style of Jan Jelinek, an effect which is only heightened by the fact that such tracks are couched amid a good few numbers that foreground Jenssen’s trademark foggy atmospheres.

This new edition of Dropsonde, reissued by Biosphere’s own Biophon label, expands on the record’s original track listing with the addition of seven previously-unreleased numbers. It’s a wonder that Jenssen didn’t include offerings like ‘In The Shape Of A Flute’ into Dropsonde’s original run, so seamlessly do their languid loops sync up with the rest of the LP. It is also fascinating to compare alternate takes of ‘Birds Fly By Flapping Their Wings’ and ‘Warmed By The Drift’ with the album versions for the way they either move towards or diverge from the more jazz-indebted elements of Dropsonde’s sound.

This reissue of Biosphere’s 2006 LP Dropsonde bolsters the record’s evocative ambient-jazz fusions with a generous helping of bonus tracks.