Circular

Artist: Circular
P: 1999
This is an ambient masterpiece! Reminiscent of Reload - A Collection of Short Stories and The Future Sound of London and containing many of the chilly landscapes that have made Biosphere famous, this second album from Norwegian ambient group Circular shines. Avoiding the pitfall of many ambient albums of settling into much-too-long dronefests, Divergent instead is a series of shorter concepts that give the feeling of being a soundtrack to the ultimate cosmic sci-fi movie. At times melancholic and dark, at other times thoughtful and warm, Divergent was a treat to chill out and listen to.

Artist: Circular
P: 2004
This is Circular's third album, and one that offers a wide variety of electronic music. It beautifully jumps between styles and genres, with influes from Biosphere and other ambient artists, science fiction movies, musique concrete, Arabic music and jazzy atmospheres similar to Angelo Badalamenti's Twin Peaks soundtrack. The whole album relies heavily on sampling and electronic treatment of sounds, and thus falls in the Art of Noise tradition where sound is more important than formal musical structure. That's not to say that the music isn't structured or crafted, which it is. Mostly we are served dishes of ambient structures garnished with cute rythm patterns and weird electronic sounds on the side. Sort of like the ambient brother of another Norwegian act, Sternklang.
Glass Darkly is much less ambient (in the drawn-out drone sense) than their previous album, Divergent, and says clearly that Circular is not an ambient group as such anymore, at least not for this album. Granted, you can play Glass Darkly in the background and experience it's nonintrusiveness, but there are so many nice details and unusual sounds that it's also an album for dedicated listening.
Even though it may be a cliché by now, Glass Darkly is one of those "Arctic ambient" albums, which is typical of Norway, inspite of the band members coming from the West Coast rather than Norway's Arctic areas. But what makes it great is not it's arcticness, but the attention to details and combinations of traditional and unusual sounds, and the way different techniques and styles have been melted into a solid plate of musical food that is both exotic and familiar. This is rarely done with success.

Artist: Circular
P: 1997
Nanotopia is the adventurous debut release from Circular. With its highly unusual and twisted angles of sound, Nanotopia presents a futuristic vision from a different world. Comparable to Orb and Future Sound of London.

Artist: Circular, Current, Nemesis. u.a.
P: 2007
A compilation of the norwegian Origo label.

Artist: Ishq,Steve Roach, Circular u.a.
P: 2001
All new tracks by the artists.