With Shenzhou, Geir Jenssen has crafted him most refined ambient work to date. It's been a long journey for Jenssen, from the chamber pop of Bel Canto, through Bleep's house music, then spaceward to the ambient techno of his first two Biosphere releases. Don't expect a return to the beat-driven territory of Patashnik; Shenzhou continues in the purely ambient vein of Biosphere's previous two albums for the avant garde Touch Label, although it is neither as overtly pretty as Substrata, nor as earthbound and naturalistic as Cirque. Shenzhou, named after a Chinese spacecraft, is a subtle work continuing Jenssen's tradition of simultaneously evoking deep space's stillness and the icy expanse of his Norwegian home.
Ten of Shenzhou's twelve tracks are based on the orchestral works of French composer Claude Debussy. Jenssen's choice of source material seems almost serendipitous given that Debussy (along with close friend Erik Satie) is considered by many to be the father of modern composition.By rejecting the dominant classical forms of the late nineteenth century, Debussy pioneered a music of impressionistic atmospheres and textures that helped clear the way for contemporary ambient music. And like Jenssen today, Debussy's compositions took inspiration from nature, be it water ("La Mer") or space ("Claire de Lune").
Unlike Wendy Carlos's Switched On Bach or William Orbit's Pieces in a Modern Style, Jenssen eschews simply creating synthesizer arrangements for the existing scores. Instead, he loops small samples of Debussy performances, then uses the treated loops as a framework onto which he carefully grafts and weaves his electronic ambience. Rather than a clumsy collision of styles, the results sound perfectly balanced and natural, with the orchestral and electronic elements blending into a new form; the resulting texture brings to mind a less dense version of Wolfgang Voight's Gas project, but without the beats. And while taken individually, each of Shenzhou's tracks may sound simple and slight, the album builds an enveloping atmosphere when listened to as a suite. By absorbing elements from ambient music's past, Jenssen has nudged the genre a bit further into its future.
