Biosphere — N-Plants
Norwegian ambient veteran responsible for accessible, melodic 'arctic ambient' classics such as "Substrata", as well as great lesser known records like 2005's jazz-tinged "Dropsonde". He's taken a sidestep with his latest, "N-Plants", and created a repetitious, soft and reserved yet tightly structured fabric of lazily rolling 4/4 pulses, droning quarter note basslines and hazily hinted melodies, as if a minimal techno record were playing quietly a couple rooms away, and a few speeds too slow. The chosen theme for the record is nuclear power, according to Jenssen, and each track is named after a Japanese power plant. This explains the stylistic shift away from flowing, organic sounds.
The songs click inconspicuously along with an unnatural, metric consistency. A theme like nuclear power could have inspired some dark music, but the general vibe here is one of mild complacency and uneventful peace. It's comparable to the feel of a dim machine room which no longer requires humans to maintain or operate, self-sufficient in its smooth, automatic functionality. The album cover features meshed gridworks of pixellated lines tinted pastel red and blue over a white background, and it serves the album well.
A high pitched whirr opens the album, and soon a bubbly, pointillistic synth enters, repeating fragments of the same downward scalar pattern at irregular intervals. Chords which resemble a horn chorale bring with them a vaguely anticipatory, determined feel, as if providing a soundtrack to the solving of a difficult mathematical or scientific problem. This network of interlocking melody and rhythm is established within the first 3 minutes, then simply hangs in space for the remaining 5. This turns out to be representative of the unhurried, static structures found on the rest of the album.
The sound palette Jenssen uses here should, by now, be familiar to Biosphere fans. Liquid, muffled lead synths repeat short, complimentary melodic sequences, chords and arpeggi in a more sophisticated iteration of early 90's IDM, as per Warp Records. Vintage drum machines are gated into crisp, clean and unobtrusive microrhythms. Particularly emphasized here are rounded, gooey bass tones, filtered into a warm, understated presence. Never one for washed out infinite reverbs, Biosphere scales back the spaciousness of his music even further here, using echo only to add an iridescent glow to the melodic contours.
Some longtime fans have expressed disappointment at this album, calling it boring or unengaging. I'm surprised at their lack of patience. This is a fascinating and distinct theme record, and one of the most profoundly relaxed recordings I own. Geir has taken the classic Biosphere sound, stripped off the excess, dimmed the lights and abandoned any sort of maudlin romanticism there was in his past recordings for a measured, thoughtful persona. "N-Plants" is recommended for any bedroom techno listener with patience, fan of downtempo like Monolake (whom Jenssen clearly beats at his own game), or ambient fan curious about the possibilities inherent in the beat.