Biosphere - Substrata

I wrote an idle review of Biosphere's classic album Substrata. I call it that because that's basically what it is - I let the album play and wrote down all the personal remarks I could think of, from smartass quips to earth-shattering transcendental insight. I need a life - and also a job.

And so,

*ahem*

This classic ambient album is, well, exactly that. A recent favourite. So, personal remarks:

1. As The Sun kissed The Horizon:

This track isn’t exactly anything. First thing that springs to mind is “Airport runway atmosphere”. It’s also the only thing. But every classic ambient album needs this kind of sonic gibberish – everyone knows that. Especially as an opening track.

2. Poa Alpina

That’s more like it. Makes me think of the University of East Anglia campus in summer 2011, when I did an introductory 2-week Russian course there. It has slight morbid overtones, but it ebbs and flows in waves, tide-like, a rocking lullaby journey out into the sea – only this is precisely an awakening from a deep, long slumber. Green, blue, cosmically oceanic and serene

3. Chukhung

My absolute favourite. Chukhung is a secluded little settlement in the Himalayas, a quaint little Nepalese village which serves intrepid hikers and backpackers, and this track makes it feel like both that and the entire universe simultaneously. Haunting, harrowing, transcendental, invigorating. A Buddhist monastery with a gong the size of the Sun. I’ve never hiked in my life (well, not properly), I’m more of a sea-man, but Chukhung makes you literally shift mountains.

4. The Things I Tell You

Mysterious synthesizer pads – feels like a bit of a basic ambient trope in how run-of-the-mill it is, but it gets the job done just right. Technologically futuristic aura to this one. And THAT’S A TWIN PEAKS SAMPLE. THE TALKING GIANT.

5. Times When I know You’ll Be Sad

Unexpected. A pensive guitar interlude with vocals. It both totally kills the galactic-voyage vibe and doesn’t. It feels just right, placed at the perfect spot. You know there won’t be any more like this on the album, it’s contained in the track, so you savour it all the more.

6. Hyperborea

Ah, yes, that mythical land constantly claimed by all the top civilizations (last one I heard was Aleksandr Dugin saying the current Russia vs West conflict is Hyperborea vs Atlantis all over again.) AND THAT’S ANOTHER TWIN PEAKS SAMPLE. Eerie, eerie, this one. Deep underwater and lost in the forest. The owls may not be what they seem.

7. Kobresia

Wait, is this one actually my favourite? Should Chukhung step aside? Tough call. Let’s have them equal. But also have Kobresia slightly more equal. Like Poa Alpina, it reminds me of summer 2011 and East Anglia. Vast, vast, boundless feelings on this one. River of time. My personal nickname for this track is “Memory Museum”.

Also, that vocal sample: “Это либо металл, либо… Если металл, то крашенный… холодная поверхность…” Speech sampled from a documentary about Russian telepath Karl Nikolaev, who is sitting in a room trying to guess which item is lying on a table situated in a room ten floors above him. This sample is taken from the 1993 ABC documentary Powers of the Russian Psychics, part of the World of Discovery series. A near translation into English is:

This is either a metal or… If it is a metal, then it’s painted… Cold surface… This is either a metal, painted, or could be a plastic… Colorful, there are… Bright… Seems like… Is this a toy? Probably. The surface is smooth, but… There are some bumps on it… Even the finger sticks in it… Probably it is… Some marks, or are these letters?… Or just bumps… Looks like a toy… Colorful metal, or a plastic… Painted metal… That’s all… Stop.^[9]

Kobresia is sublime.

8. Antennaria

Whether you’re a Christian or not, you’re going to want to have a crucifix at the ready for Antennaria. Deeply disturbing atmosphere, a hellish requiem choir, but you know all is well in the end.

9. Uva-Ursi

I just googled this track name, it’s apparently a subarctic plant sometimes used for medical purposes; Geir Jenssen – the man from Biosphere – of course, lives within the Arctic Circle in Norway. For all we know, he was under the influence of the plant when making this track - the medical purpose being lack of musical inspiration. I guess it’ll remain a mystery. “Uva-Ursi” feels like it’s meant to be from the same dimension as Poa Alpina, but it’s a tad eerier.

10. Sphere Of No Form

A really peculiar one. Most of it is what sounds like a blaring foghorn, and so you have the impression this is the same nonsensical ambient realm as on the opening track of the album, but then, for its final quarter, it suddenly transforms into a touchingly ethereal musical movement – it makes me slightly tear up everytime, or at least want to. Profoundly sorrowful, yet so redeemingly beautiful. Makes me think of old family heirlooms, possessions of pure sentimental value. Sphere Of No Form is a very special kind of piece, and there are myriad ambient tracks which fall into its kind of world. All memorable.

11. Silene

Substrata seems to finish off in the same realm as, it would seem, Antennaria. Not quite as intensely, but the dark brooding mystery is rekindled anew, in the light of the emotional outpouring of the preceding track.

Substrata ends with Silene, and yet doesn’t. It’s a mysterious cliffhanger. It makes the album feel like a Moebius Strip, in retrospect – it doesn’t seem to have begun or ended anywhere.

It is perfect as such.

But wait.

There’s also Substrata Part 2 – or rather: “Man With A Movie Camera”

Man with a Movie Camera is an ambient soundtrack by Biosphere for Dziga Vertov‘s 1929 film Man with a Movie Camera, commissioned by the Tromsø International Film Festival in 1996. This soundtrack was released later in 2001 as a bonus disc of Substrata 2 with two bonus tracks (“The Eye of the Cyclone” and “Endurium”) from the Japanese version of Substrata.

1. Prologue

A dialogue between a man and a woman plays – obviously a film sample.

But this track is yet another nothing-prologue.

It is perfect as such.

2. The Silent Orchestra

A frozen Nordic metropolis. The thickness of icey walls resonates remarkably.

Sudden Vivaldi-esque strings…

And we’re back. Same city, but that same Major Briggs sample from Hyperborea is playing again.

3: City Wakes Up

Plain weird. Alieny UFO vibes.

4. Freeze-Frames

Plain WEIRD. Some strange samples – strings, operatic singing – intermittently interject, visually creating the scene of a senile Nordic man fallen asleep in front of his old Black ‘N’ White TV, with all sorts of disasters and catastrophies going on outside.

5. Manicure

Is this a joke? Aliens at it again. A period of orchestral samples and then segue into good ol’ Strangeland ambient

6. The Club

What it says on the box. On the Spotify track listing. Samples from some sort of jazzy nightclub – that pristine old piano is a wonderful touch – but still just extremely strange.

7. Ballerina

A sort of hypnotic trance rhythm assembled out of various electronic sounds – although there is eventually an actual real-life sample of sorts. Suddenly uplifting at times, through shimmering synth pads.

8. Eye Of The Cyclone

Slightly more upbeat. The pace seems to have quickened, but still as consistently entrancing. More standard type of electronic.

9. Endurium

Low-key nightclub vibes. Bassy groove – very subtle and unassuming but insidiously powerful. Those shimmering pads at it again, giving the high-end its say in turn.

10. Laika

There are transmitter-radio samples on this one – judging by the track name, they’re probably from the Soviet space program (“Laika”, “Barker” was the name of the first dog to be sent into outer space by the USSR)

Alright. That’s all of Substrata done, it seems.

Perfect.