aking his cues from the world’s coldest, most remote regions, Geir Jenssen (AKA Biosphere) has recorded some of the loveliest atmospheric music of our time, bringing the listener on icy explorations, both tranquil and foreboding, of windswept sonic tundras. On 2000’s Cirque, Jenssen’s aural journeys were more literal than usual, with each song inspired by a different isolated locale.

For his latest album, Shenzhou, Biosphere turns away from geographic inspiration to delve into the music of composer Claude Debussy. Ten of the twelve tracks directly incorporate samples of Debussy’s “impressionist” classical music, with Biosphere’s warm drones and environmental swooshes surrounding the orchestrated loops. A rich vinyl hiss permeates the entire album, creating the impression that Jenssen is simply listening to his Debussy records on an old turntable and improvising around them—and perhaps he is, but the whole thing sounds so thoroughly integrated that it’d be hard to believe it.

The album, like all great ambient, flows by easily in the background if you’re not paying attention, but closer inspection reveals a depth and complexity that the surface barely suggests. Portions of Debussy are chopped up and looped in tiny fragments, creating a rhythmic undercurrent that flows beneath the entire record. Often the loop is so tiny that the distinct string parts of the composer’s pieces are squashed and blended into a blurry mush that is easily woven into the fabric of Biosphere’s music.

Jenssen’s non-sampled contributions to the album consist mainly of deep, subterranean bass tones and the distant whirr and crackle of electronics. On standouts like “Thermal Motion,” the main instrument is the Debussy music—cut and spliced into a fluid stream that sounds more like an icy river than that the heat source evoked by its title. The album’s best moment, “Ancient Campfire,” is more true to its name, with subtle cymbal clicks and crackling vinyl creating an aural image of a night spent in the woods huddled around a dying fire.

Like most of the album, this track combines conflicting emotions to elicit subtle shadings of mood. The dread-inducing hum of these tracks is nearly countered by the lulling melodic sense. On “Path Leading to the High Grass,” one of the few songs to incorporate percussive sounds, a muted bass drum pounds out a measured, ominous rhythm as fractured samples and insectile shaking flits across the surface of the track; it’s one of the most active moments on the disc, creating a claustrophobic warmth out of chaos.

The subtle intertwining of Debussy’s scores throughout this record provides a thematic and aural continuity between the individual tracks, helping the whole thing flow together nicely. Shenzhou is another fine offering from Biosphere; its delicate subtleties and sweeping beauty weave through your mind as elegantly as its disparate parts weave through each other.