a remastered version of shenzhou on triple vinyl and double cd with the bonus album-the samphire tower. paul cooper, pitchfork: shenzhou, aside from being the name of the chinese manned-spaceflight vehicles, means magic vessel, and i cant imagine a more apt description for geir jenssen s latest excursion into ambient deep listening. after following an aphexian trajectory with his releases on apollo, the ambient sublabel of belgiums r&s records, jenssen veered from the padded sci-fi-inspired techno of microgravity and patashnik with 1997s substrata, a genre-defining exploration of drifting soundscapes. substrata remains for many the album that perfectly expresses the serenity and intensity of arctic wildernesses, a landscape jenssen knows intimately, having spent much of his life in the norwegian arctic circle. in 2000, jenssen nearly eclipsed the success of substrata with cirque, a frequently frosty submerging of excerpted conversations and found environmental sounds that rivals wolfgang voigts gas project in its rumbling, gauzy beauty. jenssen again relies on found sound as source material for shenzhou, but this time, the found sound is old vinyl recordings of the orchestral works of french impressionist composer and ambient precursor, claude debussy. jenssen lifts fragments of these scratched records in a similar manner as he did for cirques black lamb grey falcon and iberia eterea
