»Dropsonde« was released in 2006 by the British label Touch and is an anomaly in the back catalogue of Norwegian ambient techno pioneer Geir Jenssen. As usual with Biosphere, metaphors from the realm of nature dominate the track titles and often the environment is made audible through the discreet use of field recordings. But »Dropsonde« is primarily inspired by jazz, loops the airy beats of a drummer, abstracts brass into sustained harmonies or reshapes the smallest touches of sound into jerky, circular structures. The special thing about this album is how the dominance of the here and now breaks through, on which jazz is based. The direct, lively, authentic is abstracted in loops to untimely figures. Yet the emotional qualities and tonal characteristics remain intact, and even in the melancholic tones of pieces like »People Are Friends« everything still tastes and smells like jazz. Between Bohren & der Club of Gore and Jan Jelinek, no one else has so masterfully reinterpreted an entire genre in such a radical way. But that’s not all, the new edition of “Dropsonde” comes along with seven bonus tracks, including alternative takes of, among others, the highlight »Birds Fly by Flapping Their Wings« and tracks that are in no way inferior to the original album, even expanding it with rattling IDM rhythms, crispy noise and even more whimsical jazz-not-jazz ambience. »Dropsonde« represents an anomaly in general, and a beguilingly beautiful one at that.
Dropsonde
