Biosphere - Wireless: Live at the Arnolfini, Bristol - CD

Product no.: TONE38

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Biosphere - Wireless: Live at the Arnolfini, Bristol - CD
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Touch - TONE 38 - 5027803903821


Recorded live at The Arnolfini, Bristol, 27th October 2007 by the doyen of sound recordists, Chris Watson, using 2 x Sony ECM 77s with a Nagra P11 Ares flash card recorder, and from desk to hard drive. The recording was mixed, edited and mastered by Touch stalwart BJNilsen, in Berlin during March 2009.

This concert was part of Touch 25 Live, which also featured a performance of Storm [by Chris Watson & BJNilsen]. Biosphere is Norwegian composer and performer Geir Jenssen, and this is his sixth release for Touch. In the early 1990s he was a pioneer of so-called "ambient techno," but since then, he has refined his sound into something more magnetic and enduring. His last album, Dropsonde, wasn't a soundtrack like the interwoven Substrata, nor an episodic journey in the way that Autour de la Lune is. It pushed new directions towards the jazz colors of Miles Davis and Jon Hassell, while re-invigorating the pulse and projection of his signature sound: a hypnotic combination of pleasure and dread. Here Geir Jenssen takes this further, incorporating samples of field recordings by Jony Easterby and trumpet by Anders Karlskås, invoking a sparser, more arresting sound. A landmark release for Biosphere, his first live album, heralding new beginnings without jettisoning the past...

 

While each one of his albums has a very definite identity, the careful juxtaposition of tracks from different eras here actually works in the same way as Jenssen’s regular records, building a beautiful narrative from sounds sourced, for the most part, from nature, and arranged into evocative formations, some thriving on beat-less structures, others invigorated with subtle drum motifs. Here, like on his studio recordings, Jenssen voluntarily blurs the boundaries of each piece, leaving them to leak into the next, creating a seemingly flawless stream of music and sound.
 
Geir Jenssen is a truly accomplished performer who has, over the years, relentlessly worked at underlying the deep organic roots of his music, either through the widespread use of sounds sourced in nature, or through numerous installations across the world. This album demonstrates how his enveloping soundscapes become even more effective when performed live. Wireless is a superb document, not only of Geir Jenssen’s work, but also of the ethos that has made Touch one of the most singular and respected labels around.
 

You'd be extremely hard-pressed to find a better sounding live document anywhere. A massive recommendation.

 

1. Pneuma
2. Shenzou
3. Birds Fly by Flapping Their Wings
4. Kobresia
5. When I Leave
6. Warmed by the Drift
7. The Things I Tell You
8. Moistened and Dried
9. Sherbrooke
10. Calais Ferryport
11. Pneuma, Pt. 2

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