Norwegian ambient maestro Geir Jenssen aka Biosphere maintains his fascination with natural landscapes in The Petrified Forest, in a sort of impressionistic illustration of Archie Mayo’s 1936 film of the same name. After imaginary trips taking us to Trømso, the Wolski forest on Poland, and more esoteric corners of his mind, this time his music inhabits a noirish world on the edge of the desert, populated by nervous and disillusioned characters who crop up in snatches of sampled dialogue across strewn across the album’s isolated, imagined interzones.

Night falls with the opening prickles of starlit synth and smooth blanket of darkness in Drifter, inviting us to scud across the endless panorama of Black Mesa pushed by spare electro downbeats, touching upon the fulgurite synth figures and charred beat stumps of Turned To Stone, whilst The Petrified Forest itself appears a totally serene space akin to one of Wolfgang Voigt’s wistful Gas spaces, and Just One Kiss recalls Pye Corner Audio waltzing into the dawn, before the album resolves with thew weightless 808 sway of This Is The End, which could almost have come from a late ‘90s AFX or Ae album.

The Petrified Forest mini-album is inspired by the movie of the same name, released in 1936 and directed by Archie Mayo. Alan Squier, a failed, world-weary British writer, hikes into an isolated, weather-beaten desert diner in Arizona owned by Jason Marple. Jason's daughter, Gabrielle is immediately taken with the disillusioned intellectual, since they share idealistic dreams of escaping the stark reality of their lives. (IMDB)