Search - Biosphere :: Cirque

Oh, how I tried to love it...

Jay M | 02/12/2002

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I've waited at least six months before sitting down to scribble up a review for this album. My hope was in that time the album would grow on me, much like the way honeysuckle infiltrates a trellis. Don't get me wrong, it has to a certain extent, but in comparison to Geir's previous work, Substrata, (usually I'm loathe to compare, but I can't resist here) it's not what I was expecting as a follow-up to that masterpiece. Perhaps therein lies the problem; how does one better near-perfection? Well, I'm no virtuoso, but I'd suggest some more of the stuff that went into Substrata. (Sure, then he'd be labeled `stagnant', `repetitive', `complacent'...and all those other modifiers that the critics hurl at you if you haven't bothered to `progress', or `re-invent yourself'.) On Cirque, there's too much orthodox beat-work underlying many of the tracks. (Beat-work is fine, so long as you can elevate it beyond the ordinary, much as R.D James does on `Selected Ambient Works Volume I). As well, besetting not only this album, but also practically half the artistic output of all mediums combined, is the failure to transcend that mark where the work appears purely natural. You don't notice good actors acting, good writers writing, or good composers composing: there are moments on Cirque where you can visualise, involuntarily, the creator sitting at his PC or mixing desk, twiddling the knobs, and with no great success finding that vital ingredient. Substrata, however, exists much like the wind or the rain; you appreciate it for what it is and don't give much thought to the underpinnings-you can't give much thought to the underpinnings, the work is that encapsulating.There are some top-shelf tracks on here though, most notably the last, and the album does succeed in retaining a certain mood, not altogether disparate from the cover shot: bleak, lonesome, and laced with melancholy. Which brings me to...I've read that the album is somehow a companion piece to Jon Krakauer's non-fiction work, "Into The Wild", the story of Chris McCandless, a young man who passed up on the traditional American suburban life in favour of the Alaskan wilderness, a place where his emaciated body was found some time later. It may be so that the album is intended to complement, not Krakaur's work as such, but the experience that was the final few months of Chris' life. "Into The Wild", although a short piece as far as books go, nevertheless is a fine page-turner. If you care to click over a few pages to the reviews of this book on this site, you'll see an abundance of people throwing about terms such as "Oh what a waste of a life", "How tragic", etc, etc. I disagree, and not entirely because I have a rather pragmatic view of death. Chris McCandless died doing what he thought served his inner-self best. It's a brutal dichotomous force, that primordial instinct wound tightly in the demands of modern Western life. Chris McCandless searched for that inner-truth, and, who knows, maybe for a while he found it. But at least he searched, which is more than can be said for most of us: we're to busy checking our reflection in the window of Starbucks. Yes, I've still given Cirque four stars. That's because if you take every atmospheric/ambient album in the world, pile them on top of one another in order of listening pleasure -worst at the bottom, the best up top-you'd find this album no lower than one fifth down the pile."

Superb Ambient Chillage

K. Topitzes | Earth | 12/14/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As a pretty hardcore ambient lover, I think I can safely say this is one of the best electronic ambient albums of all time. This is a great CD to fall asleep to, with very subtle percussive rhythms (almost atmospheric D&B like in place) and lovely use of symphonic samples. Easily one of my top 5 ambient discs."

*Better than Substrata

BlueWallpaper | New York City | 10/28/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I might as well get the shocking part of this out the way.... This album is better than Substrata. I appreciate that Substrata is one of the finest ambient albums out there (making the luke warm response to the follow up almost inevitable) but Cirque is better. In the contexts of ambient techno it's slightly more organic and, to me, feels like a more complete sound. A recurring phrase that comes up when people try to describe Substrata, for whatever reason, is 'arctic landscape'. If you take the North Pole as your departure point then Cirque would probably be Iceland.... Sounds like a mess of a description I'll admit but if you listen to them both, although oblique, I think makes some sense. So where would you rather go on holiday - Iceland or the North Pole?"