Biosphere

Crafting dreamy Arctic soundscapes as dazzling as the aurora borealis, Biosphere has been an institution of ambient and experimental music since the early ‘90s, melding field recordings, droning loops and studies of archeology and space travel into singularly ethereal works. Biosphere is the mysterious moniker of Norwegian producer Geir Jenssen, who was born in 1962 in the far north city of Tromsø. Jenssen picked up his first synthesiser in 1983, releasing moody, acid house-influenced albums with projects such as E-Man and Bleep. As he transitioned into Biosphere with percussive early LPs Microgravity (1991) and Patashnik (1994), dance music structures began fading into exploratory, shapeless ruminations, most notably on his 1997 ambient opus, Substrata. Jensen's challenging ambient and drone work has been compared to that of Aphex Twin and Coil, though a quirky interest in pop culture has led him to frequently sample sci-fi films and TV shows like Twin Peaks. Biosphere has scored a number of films, including Insomnia (1997), and later releases tap into collective anxieties over nuclear power (N-Plants, 2011), war tragedies (Departed Glories, 2016) and even classical music (Angel's Flight, 2021).