BIOSPHERE Cirque [Reissue with bonus album] 3LP

Cirque - originally released in 2000 - was Biosphere´s first album for the UK label Touch. This new re-issue comes with a 6-track bonus album and new artwork.

Mojo (UK): Fourth full album from ambient pioneer. Coming to prominence with 1992's Microgravity - which along with the first couple of Aphex/Polygon Window CDs, defined the genre ambient - Geir Jenssen as Biosphere has made three of the '90s' best albums, culminating with last year's near beatless Substrata. The idea - as it always was thanks to Eno's On Land - is music as environment (reflecting, creating): working from his base in Tromso, Arctic Norway, Jenssen offers a polar, Apollonian exploration of the human psyche. Cirque is a perfectly constructed 47-minute sequence: cold clarity up against real depth of field, synth cycles dissolving into sudden moments of sonic revelation that sound like a waking dream - try the first 20 seconds of Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. (And if you think that's pretentious - your loss). Inspired by the story of a young American, Chris McCandless, who walked alone into the Alaskan wilderness and perished, Cirque balances the tightrope between warmth and unease, resolving into a moon melody that leaves you a peace. What a good record! [Jon Savage].

A1        Nook & Cranny    4:01
A2        Le Grand Dôme    5:40
A3        Grandiflora    0:45
A4        Black Lamb & Grey Falcon    5:18
B1        Miniature Rock Dwellers    1:06
B2        When I Leave    6:04
B3        Iberia Eterea    6:36
B4        Moistened & Dried    3:37
C1        Algae & Fungi (Part 1)    5:36
C2        Algae & Fungi (Part 2)    5:17
C3        Too Fragile To Walk On    4:51
D1        When I Leave (Finely Tuned Version)    6:49
D2        Algae & Fungi (Candelaria Version)    5:46
E1        Minuarta    8:02
E2        Hoodoo    8:43
F1        Slowly Etching    7:12
F2        B9    6:38