Search - Biosphere & Higher Intelligence Agency :: Birmingham Frequencies

Second pas-de-deux by two untouchables

yorgos dalman | Holland, Europe | 06/26/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Birmingham frequencies" is the second collaboration between to ambient powerhouses: Geir Jenssen's Biosphere and Bobby Bird's Higher Intelligence Agency.



Their first was "Polar sequences", an album that ranks among the best of ambient in general and of both artists in particular.

It's a live performance in Oktober 1995 on a mountain in Tromsø, Norway (Jenssen's hometown), in the Artic region. In summertime, the sun shines night and day, in winter time, the darkness creeps in and seems eternaly, until the dawn of next year's summer kisses the horizon again.

Samples of the machinery of the local cable lift, snow, moving crusts of ice, and more were used. The result is as mesmerising as Biosphere landmark album "Substrata".

The last track "Meltwater" is as hypnotic as it is astonishing. Pieces of ice seem to float in icy water and produce hollow cracking sounds as the crusts scrape along side each others edges. Literaly moving and mesmerising and a true work of art.



Biosphere's albums like the afore mentioned "Substrata", but also "Shenzhou" and "Man with a movie camera" keep the listener on the edge of his seat. And a returning thought for most of us is "How is he doing it?" This is real magic time.

Tom Opdahl's "Black smoker" which Biosphere's Geir Jenssen produced to a level that almost equals his own work, and the Deathprod collaboration "Nordheim transformed" are two more amazing outputs that come out of the black magician's hat.



And now there is the second Biosphere / Higher Intelligence Agence act: "Bermingham frequencies". Birmingham, we learn from the inlay is Bobby Bird's hometown.

The opening track, "Cannon Hill", which is filled with joyful sounding children's voices, the presence of birds and sparkling water, is described like this: "It's about 2:30 on a sunny Sunday afternoon in late September. We're in Cannon Hill Park, Birmingham, where people are taking advantage of the unusually warm weather. A little girl is running around tryng to catch one of the many geese for a cuddle as the rest chomp happily on the grass."

In this way, all tracks are anounced. What to think of track six, "Daddylonglegs": "Late one night at Paddy & Jane's attic flat in Mosely, we find a Dadylonglegs flying around inside a pink plastic seventies lamp shade, mesmerised by it's light, we record it's performance."

"

Wonderful ambient album

Cleve | Western NY | 03/22/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I highly recommend both this album and the earlier collaboration between HIA and Biosphere - "Polar Sequences".



However, this album is more rhythmic, and makes for better "road music" for accompanying one in the car."