Biosphere / Deathprod – Nordheim Transformed

September 30, 1998 • Rune Grammofon

Arne Nordheim was a Norwegian composer of musique concrète and electroacoustic music, whose work was paid tribute to by ambient artists Biosphere and Deathprod. I hadn't heard of Nordheim before I first heard this album, but I was at least passingly familiar with both Biosphere and Deathprod and have enjoyed most of what I've heard from them. This album is an interesting listen, and not a disappointing one either.

For this review, I decided to take a listen to Arne Nordheim's compilation Electric, since I'd never heard his music before and wanted to know how Nordheim Transformed related to it. It's drone-laden, noisy (yet oddly minimalist) musique concrète, a genre I'm not really a huge fan of, but the album is actually quite interesting. The remixed versions sound almost nothing like the originals, however, and it's a bit hard to believe they have anything to do with Nordheim's work. I'm not saying this is a bad thing—both artists do an excellent job working the source in their own styles, and to my ears the result is a lot more pleasing.

Biosphere's contribution to the split sounds relatively similar to his other album I've heard, Dropsonde—extremely toned-down, reverb-drenched electronic music, probably more ambient than anything else, but with the occasional, very subtle, bass beat. Smatterings of what could be Nordheim's original sound effects punctuate the ambience here and there: glitches, bursts of noise, wooshes, voices, and the like. It's really nice stuff and produced quite well, probably better than what I've heard from Dropsonde, and it reminds me I probably ought to look into some of his other work.

Deathprod's tracks are not too different from his darker material (like what appears on Morals and Dogma) and after all the production they've gone through, they bear little resemblance to anything classical. He really makes the pieces his own, creating a very creepy and atmospheric mood that is really quite good; they are very drawn-own and droney, and very bleak like Morals and Dogma without being too overdone. There are quite a few neat sound effects used, which is typical for his style, but here they're of course gleaned from Nordheim's work yet integrated pretty seamlessly into the remixes. As I am a bit disappointed by Deathprod's relatively small (and somewhat inconsistent) discography, these tracks are a really nice addition to his stuff I already like.

Admittedly, the music isn't the most interesting, and it might even get a touch boring at times, but as I really like the mood and atmosphere created on this Nordheim Transformed, that doesn't bother me at all. It's a great listen and great mood music. And best of all, you don't even have to like musique concrète to like it.

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