Biosphere – Patashnik

Patashnik has been my favourite album for years: as I am on here to replace the snapped tape in immortal optical plastic, I thought I’d share my impressions. Its actually a good one to own on tape, for a bit of analogue comfort-noise and ease of continuously looping it.
First off, the album is haunting but hummable. Certain other works of Jensen’s (eg Shenzou) sound like a whale with wind but patashnik is an earlier work and remains more strongly in the dance-music tradition, plunging from ethereal heights to pulse-racing breaks with the fluency of a falcon, then cruising in an intellectually active but viscerally tranquil state of grace which can last for subjective days. One track I take issue with has the cheesy sample “…an Extra-terrestrial disk-jockey” repeated several times. In the end I re-recorded the tape with just the intro and the first part of the sample re-cued a few times (”can you imagine..?”). I also threw in the drum solo from a nameless sixties rock song to fill up the rest of the space, and provide a much needed bit of analogue palate-refreshment. 10 minutes of silence were another excellent adjunct to the music, at the end of the other side of the tape.
Listen and love.

‘Novelty Waves’ is the Biosphere song used in the Levi’s advert so many years ago. With its ominous melody and growling bass, it probably is the piece of work that Biosphere (Geir Jennsen) is best known for, but it hardly reflects his full sound. This song was recorded at the time when Jennsen was slowly moving away from the beat driven songs on his previous album ‘Microgravity’, into a much more ambient soundscape electronic field of music.
This album though is probably the best one to go for for first time listeners to Biosphere. It contains a mixture of beat driven and ambient soundscape tracks, as well as icy electro tracks and warm sounding electro tracks. Out of all his albums it is certainly the most listener friendly.

But that doesn’t mean it’s not innovative or cutting edge, far from it. Biosphere is widely respected as a man who can conjure up sounds which other electronic artists can only dream of. This album is quality from start to finish.

A landmark album in the field of electronica from the mid-’90s.

Buy Biosphere – Patashnik @ Amazon