>> Biosphere
bio: Biosphere, the recording name of Geir Jenssen, is a Norwegian musician who has released a large catalogue of ambient electronic music.
Originating from Tromsų, a city within the arctic circle in the north of Norway, Jenssen is famous for his ambient arctic influenced sound. In the 1980's Jenssen used to be part of the moody Norwegian synth trio Bel Canto, but after the first two Bel Canto albums he left the band in order to pursuit a different music style altogether. After initially being influenced by the Acid House and New Beat music of the time he released various 12" records under the moniker Bleep in the late 1980's, followed by his first solo album The North Pole By Submarine in 1990. This album would however also mark the end of both the Bleep moniker and most of his particular style as a solo artist up to that time.
In the early 1990's Jenssen decided to release his music as Biosphere instead, both to mark a new direction in style and to avoid any association with "bleep house" (as made popular in the early 1990's by the Sheffield UK based Warp Records). After the odd appearance as Biosphere on obscure Norwegian compilation albums Biosphere released his first full length album Microgravity on the small Norwegain Origo Sound label in 1991 after failing to get his new album released to a broader public by his former Belgian record label SSR (a sublabel of the renowned Crammed Discs label) who weren't sure what to make of the arctic influenced and obscure sci-fi and cult sample driven "Ambient Techno" that made up most of the album. Eventually Jenssen did manage to get the album released on the R&S Records subsidiary Apollo in 1992, to much critical acclaim.
The second Biosphere album Patashnik (1994) explores the artic ambient techno sound to an even greater extent, but also contains the first hints of the less beat-driven sound that would mark later Biosphere releases. Unlike the first album, Patashnik was quickly picked up by a relatively large international audience and brought Biosphere some fame, indeed, a bit more than he had bargained for.
In 1995, the jeans brand Levi's was in desperate search of an alternative angle to their television advertisement campain (which up to that point had never featured electronic music) and they decided to use the uptempo track Novelty Waves (from the Patashnik album). Shortly after, Novelty Waves was released as a single in various countries (featuring remixes by various other artists), and it even managed to score a singles chart position in some countries. Although Jenssen never regretted his approval for use of the track, he never sought this kind of fame and turned down various requests by his record company and peers to collaborate on tracks and albums with well-known Techno and Drum 'n Bass artists or to create a follow-up album in the same style. In fact, he chose to do the exact opposite and worked in solitude on an pure ambient album which would eventually be released in 1997 on All Saints records and which was called Substrata. Substrata is not only generally considered to be Jenssen's best work to date but is also seen as one of the all time classic ambient albums.
After Substrata, another 4 regular Biosphere studio albums have been released: the atmospheric ambient and muffled-beat driven Cirque (2000), the classic Debussy-sample driven Shenzhou (2002), the extremely minimal and austere Autour de la lune (2004) and the ambient and jazz influenced Dropsonde (2005/2006).
Biosphere performs live regularly on (alternative) electronic music festivals and clubs in Europe and various other countries around the world. These performances are rarely tied specifically to a recent album release. Biosphere live performances usually consist of Geir Jenssen performing (improvisations or variations on) newer tracks (commonly only work from his more recent albums as well as totally unknown material) on a laptop while video art is projected behind him. The uptempo material from the Bleep and Microgravity/Patashnik era is (almost) never featured in live performances anymore. In May 2004, Biosphere's first United States performance took place in Detroit.
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