Given that Tibet is literally the top of the world, making these recordings took some doing, whether it was the supply trucks blasting along mountain roads in the snow, transistor radios playing in high altitude, or birds that Jenssen fed to try to lure them closer. The journey was taken slowly so as to avoid altitude sickness. It was rigorous: it took two weeks to get from Katmandu to the Base Camp in Tibet. Jenssen made field recordings of all stages of his trip. He traveled to Tibet in September and October of 2001 and climbed Cho Oyu, a mountain on the Tibetan/Nepalese border it's the sixth largest peak in the world and is 8,201 meters high, hence the title. Fewer still know that Jenssen is an experienced mountaineer. He also recorded the soundtrack for the film version of Insomnia. Geir Jenssen is better known as Biosphere, the Norwegian electronic/ambient composer responsible for a half deck of albums on the Touch label between 19. Every once in a while Jenssen overworks an effect, but in its totality Cho Oyu 8201m is an absorbing release: an arthouse documentary without the scenery. This is packaging with a sense of occasion. He’s helped by Jon Wozencroft, who tucks the CD into a stiff card envelope along with a map and tour diary. The amount of wind and bell on the album hint at the ease with which he could have been overwhelmed by the hugeness of the landscape and peace-and-Buddhism stereotypes of Tibetan life, but he chooses his samples sparingly and shows a holistic and precise appreciation of place, giving time to small, specific sounds, such as the tip-tap of birds pecking at biscuits on a rock, and the incidental grunts of passing yak herders. The noises he uses in this one come from a trip he made up Cho Oyu, a mountain on the border between Nepal and Tibet. Geir Jenssen, who also goes under the name of Biosphere, lives in a town in northern Norway and assembles soundscapes.
A unique narrative full of deep rhythms and exciting textures.
iW."'Cho Oyu 8201m' is a wonderfully rich and well documented sonic adventure.
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