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Biosphere: Geir Jenssen. Geir Jenssen's output toward the latter end of the '90s includes a soundtrack, a remix collection, a reinterpretation of Arne Nordheim's ageless electro-acoustic works, and collaborations with HIA's Bobby Bird. CIRQUE is the first volume of undiluted Biosphere since 1997's SUBSTRATA. The exquisite CIRQUE was inspired by the harrowing story of Chris McCandles, a young man whose self-determined survival quest in the Alaskan wilderness ended tragically. Like the best Biosphere, CIRQUE captures the grandeur and danger of the icebound North. Elegant ambient loops and craggy beats call to mind miles of frozen tundra and boundless blue sky. It's obvious how McCandles was seduced by the siren song of Alaska's natural mystery. As the listener drifts through the layered landscape, the accumulating accents suggest the mirage-like shadow-play of sunlight on snow ("Iberia Eterea"), the arrayed flight of furred and feathered onlookers ("Black Lamb & Grey Falcon"), the imposing presence of mountains and weather fronts, and the mesmerizing underfoot crunch of packed permafrost. Sampled wireless transmissions and emphatic bass undulations impart a menacing character to CIRQUE's aural Arctic, and the elegiac closer ("Too Fragile to Walk On") serves as a sad reminder that man's spirit is always subject to his physical frailties.
