BIOSPHERE: INSOMNIA CD  SOLD OUT!
Urban Sounds, USA: "Insomnia was released at roughly the same time as Geir Jenssen's debut Biosphere recording for All Saints, Substrata. Because of its label's obscurity (the Norwegian Origo Sound), however, it hasn't received half the attention. Shame, since it's a gorgeous album, in line with Jenssen's recent work with Higher Intelligence Agency's Bobby Bird on the collaborative PolarSequences and the more subdued of Substrata's glacial movements. As that implies, you won't find quite the track development here that the best of Jenssen's work is known for (Insomnia is mostly drones, repeating figures, and occasional sparse, non-acoustical percussion). But then take into account that it's a soundtrack recording (for the Erik Skjoldbjaerg film of the same name) presented in vignette form and it should be clear the music is meant to serve a different, less diffuse purpose. Nonetheless, the material -- split into 17 tracks ranging from 1.5 to 5 minutes, with most hanging around the mean -- is uniformly accomplished, and is on the whole an engaging, dynamic listen, even without the reference of the film to fill out its sparse framework. With Substrata and Pulusha's "Isolation," among some of the best (mostly) pure ambient to appear this year. Rating: 8 "

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