Substrata
by Biosphere
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Biosphere bestography
Substrata is ranked as the best album by Biosphere.
(N.B. Bestographies include all albums by an artist (and their variations), but do not include albums ranked outside the top 100,000).
Listen to Substrata on YouTube
Substrata track list
The tracks on this album have an average rating of 78 out of 100 (all tracks have been rated).
Substrata rankings
Calculated from aggregate positions across 60,000 charts (2 million album rankings). Click to see how the rankings are calculated (Last updated: 7 hours ago)
| Year | Source | Chart | Rank | Rank Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 |  bertrandu | Ambient 1958-2000 | 4/100 | - |
| 2026 |  Norman Bates | Top 100 Music Albums of 1997 | 50/100 | 3 |
| 2026 |  RockyRaccoon | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s | 57/100 | 9 |
| 2026 | pjerske | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s | 46/100 | 11 |
| 2026 | Exist-en-ciel | Top 100 Music Albums of 1997 | 41/100 | 3 |
| 2026 | RockyRaccoon | Top 47 Music Albums of 1997 | 9/47 | 4 |
| 2026 |  Patman360 | Top 99 Music Albums of 1997 | 66/99 | 2 |
| 2026 |  NowhereMan | Top 100 Music Albums of the 1990s | 77/100 | 5 |
| 2026 | RockyRaccoon | Electronic | 27/100 | - |
| 2026 |  JoaoMoreira | Top 12 Music Albums of 1997 | 6/12 | 3 |
| Total Charts: The total number of charts that this album has appeared in. | 81 | |||
| Total Rank Score: The total rank score. | 493 | |||
Substrata collection
Showing latest 20 members who have this album in their collection | Show all 21 members
Substrata ratings
Average Rating = (n ÷ (n + m)) × av + (m ÷ (n + m)) × AVwhere:
av = trimmed mean average rating an item has currently received.
n = number of ratings an item has currently received.
m = minimum number of ratings required for an item to appear in a 'top-rated' chart (currently 10).
AV = the site mean average rating.
Showing latest 3 ratings for this album. | Show all 95 ratings for this album.
| Rating | Date updated | Member | Album ratings | Avg. album rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ! | 05/27/2026 22:49 | Exist-en-ciel | 16,152 | 70/100 |
| ! | 01/11/2026 23:25 | JoaoMoreira | 496 | 74/100 |
| ! | 12/29/2025 18:23 | mutant | 1,671 | 56/100 |
Rating metrics:
Outliers can be removed when calculating a mean average to dampen the effects of ratings outside the normal distribution. This figure is provided as the trimmed mean. A high standard deviation can be legitimate, but can sometimes indicate 'gaming' is occurring. Consider a simplified example* of an item receiving ratings of 100, 50, & 0. The mean average rating would be 50. However, ratings of 55, 50 & 45 could also result in the same average. The second average might be more trusted because there is more consensus around a particular rating (a lower deviation).
(*In practice, some albums can have several thousand ratings)
This album is rated in the top 6% of all albums on BestEverAlbums.com. This album has a Bayesian average rating of 75.7/100, a mean average of 75.5/100, and a trimmed mean (excluding outliers) of 76.1/100. The standard deviation for this album is 15.2.
Substrata favourites
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Substrata forum mentions
Tha1ChiefRocka 11/20/2025 05:31 in ChiefRocka in 2026
Anti 01/21/2024 16:59 in The Great Revisitation Project: 2023-24 Edition
NoisyBeast 01/17/2021 11:55 in What album are you listening to right now?Substrata comments
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One of the greatest ambient albums, deserves a much higher ranking.
JulianR TOP 100 COMMENTER 06/17/2019 23:04 | #237755 | TOP COMMENT
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An album that I wanted to enjoy, and really can't say that I did. It is very dark, very chilling. But overall not that musically interesting. I love generally the incorporation of field recordings into music, but they were a little lackluster in this instance. I just felt like I could guess what was going to happen next the whole time. snippet of a field recording/sample of someone talking, some repetitive uninteresting musical thing for 4 minutes, new sample, etc.
I will try and come back to this album. There are very few critically acclaimed albums that I have gone back to multiple times that have not finally clicked in some form. But also, this album feels like there's not a whole lot to click. I didn't enjoy the atmosphere, and thats about all there is.
65/100 (Below Average)
This is one of those few albums that I need to hear a couple more times before I give my final rating. As of now it is really pleasant album that give this vibe of being cold and beautiful. However, the album somewhat keeps me hanging wanting more from it. It might be due to loving an album like Pop where there is multiple details for days or the deceptive nature of Pop. While Substrata doesn't go that far. Maybe this is one point in time where ambient as well as ambient techno got more impressive now then back in 97. So we will see if this holds up on a few more listens.
Lowkey 11/05/2015 14:16 | #152536 | TOP COMMENT
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Chilling, and that's not just because it's Arctic Ambient.
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