OÖPHOI

Oöphoi is the brainchild of the late Gianluigi Gasparetti (1958-2013). Gianluigi used electronically treated sounds to imitate a distorted Mother Nature much in the same way that Stefano Musso does in his ALIO DIE releases. With Bardo he created one of my favorite contemplative/shamanic/meditative musical journey albums of all time.

1. "Samten Bardo - Contemplation" (16:14) a droning number of synth chords, rustling wind chimes, and intermittent and linear transpiring muted and muffled industrial sounds that soften and smooth out in the mid-section. Nothing very special or memorable here. (24/30)

2. "Chikai Bardo - Dissolution" (11:38)I love the slightly over-loud "rocket" effect employed within which are some of the clearest, most steadfast notes and chords while incidental spirits and sprites visit and, sometimes, try to engage with us. Starting in the third minute it feels as if we are on a space train to some unknown destination: to an internment camp, or the outer suburbs of København, into the mines of Lusus or who knows where! I love it! This is Brian Eno's 1980s Ambient work taken further: into the subliminal! I could see how this could be disturbing for some, but I find it exhilarating! (19/20)

3. "Chonyi Bardo - A Path Of The Lights" (28:54) deeply engaging and hypnotic. A great trip-inducing passage of electronica--as if escaping the gravitational pull of Self to fly freely among the Truth. Flawless! (60/60)

4. "Sipai Bardo - Crossing The Bridge Of Existence The Eternal Cycle" (17:34) deeply echoing gongs and Tibetan instrumental and vocal sounds drawn out over seventeen minutes. Not nearly as engaging, transportive, or transformative as the previous two--though the intensification of Tibetan overtone throat singing and volume rise in the eleventh minute does kind of lock one in for a few minutes--but then things begin to back off and let one go for the final three minutes. Too bad. I'd much rather be thrown into the fire and left to simmer and seep like the previous two songs. (30/35)

A-/five stars; a minor masterpiece of progressive rock music and a sure-fire masterpiece of 21st Century Progressive Electronica.

Synthesizer masters Oöphoi (Gianluigi Gasparetti) and Tau Ceti (Enrico Cosimi) have created here a truly remarkable collection of interspace or interspatial soundscapes. Celestial Geometries is an album cast entirely of songs composed of atmospheric space sounds. The music here reminds me much of the noises used to fill interstellar space scenes in films like the Ridley Scott Alien series in which the director/composer is trying to capture the stark feelings of emptiness that the void of soundless space might present. There is also an influence expressed from musical traditions of the 1980s like BRIAN ENO's On Land and Apollo albums, only the songs here are more drawn out (the way we all probably wanted Eno's songs back in the 80s to be). Verily, each song represents an eery adventure that challenges the listener to stay centered in oneself and grounded in the realities that are known to us. With the accompaniment of this music, the isolated, solitary listener can test the boundaries of his or her consciousness and let the imagination run wild. Not for the faint of heart but brilliant for those experienced with meditation, trance, and hypnosis.

Five star songs: the beautiful 2. "Cydonia Plains" (7:01) (10/10); the spacious 1. "Arsia Echoes" (9:28) (9/10); the unsettling 3. "Valles Marineris" (11:04) (9/10); the peaceful, 4. "Chryse Planitia" (7:28) (9/10), and; the scary, hyperdriven first third of, and calmer, "you have reached your destination" final half of 5. "Isidis" (13:03) (9/10).

Four star songs: the eerie, "who's out there!" of 6. "Candor Chasm" (6:44) (8/10), and; the heavy, vocalise-driven, almost-monastic-feeling and ultimately peaceful 7. "Tholus" (12:46) (8/10).

4.5 stars; a near-masterpiece of Ambient/Progressive Electronic music.

On the bright side Oophoi's deep and wide atmospheres are present and reloaded. On the not so bright side his usual magnetic melody lines are simplified to become unilineal and macro-minimal.

This "Forgotten Rituals" (with Faryus), 2007 release, rarely moves outside or beyond itself. It does fill the sonic environment to the top and has its bright lights, yet on the long run it is quiet monotonous. Not the best place to start or get acquainted with this musician's works.

As far as rating it, as I do with Oophoi's releases, I rate it according to his own releases, if otherwise and in comparison to most Electronic Proggers, this guy's musical language is free of foreign influences or "borrowed" ones, therefore incomparable and unique.

The mere fact of owning a unique idiom gives any musician or band, in my book, a non less than 3 stars rating, sadly this release just stays there flat.

***3 PA stars.

As soon as 16 seconds pass by , the immediate sense of entering Oophoi's musical kingdom and knowing beforehand of his acute ability to create one of a kind, enticing sonic spaces , well, you know you are in for an "earthly/cosmic" ride.

Long gone Gianluigi Gasparetti (1958 / 2013), a.k.a. Oophoi was a meticulous performer, his low-keyed persona helped to mantain his real deal as an out of the radar, extraordinary electronic musician, but, above all, it helped him to find his true voice among these endless oceans of electronic music, thus his musical language, as in all great artists, is unique.

"Spirals of Time", 1998, is a long and deep , 2 cd , journey. Resembling in fact a physical journey, due to its field recordings, which provide a true sonic/physical sensation of actually gliding through these strange but, dream like, recognizable places. This project flows along a religious like primitive spirituality in a slow paced and transparent motion, through its wide open, ever changing, weather/places' atmospheres.

Obviously, its ground breaking attibutes, rely on this musician's composition abilities and of course the compromise of listeners, who do enjoy this kind of abstract, meditative and non-urban dronescapes.

****4 PA stars in the Progressive Electronic universe.

Melanchollic sadness taints this Oophoi's "An Aerial View", 2008. An enticing, yet selective, mood which will rarely fit in anyones own choice as a daily's humor or whim.

Nonetheless this is irrelevant as far as recommending or rating goes.

As I have written Gianluigi Gasparetti aka Oophoi had a natural instinct for composing very emotional and attractive melody lines. By emotional, I, of course, do not refer to dramatic or soap-opera's antics, I mean heartfelt, thus universal human emotions and by sadness I do mean solitary, undisguised human existence's sadness.

Anyway this project was comissioned by the Glacial Movements Records and in Gianluigi Gasparetti own words.

-" When I've been asked to describe the Ice Age with an uninterrupted drone, I knew I wanted to avoid the cliches of the genre: dark rumblings, massive low frequencies, cold atmospheres. I had to describe with sounds the white landscape, the blinding light reflected by the frozen oceans, the abyssal silence.I have imagined myself in flight over this Sleeping Earth, a solitary winged-being surrounded by winds, air, water and ice. This led me to compose an airy drone with minimal variations and delicate tones, an hommage to a pure, incontaminated and remote land." -  Oöpho

A "solitary winged-being surrounded by winds, air, water and ice.", I guess that sums it up.

Deep listenings, that is what it takes . "Deep Listenings", as the Italian music magazine he used to be editor of is named.

****4 PA stars.

Gianluigi Gasparetti, (26 March 1958 - 12 April 2013) known by the pseudonym Oophoi, had a keen and natural way to create and thread highly attractive melody lines, whose abundance and consistency could be the envy of 1000s of Rock/Prog acts , who have disguised this limitation with fireworks and stage lights or "provocative", (yet, more than once meaningless) , concepts.

"Mare Vaporum", remastered, reshaped, refinished and released in 2010, closes, a then ongoing, trilogy which started in 2001, and is no exception to what was before mentioned about his natural genius , which by the way, poses a true challenge when rating, which means that with this kind of music composition level, he surely outsmarts any , usually overrated yearly, "this current year's PA 5 STARS Phenomenon", which eventually just get lost in the crowd the following year and so on.

So in able to debug this tree, I will cast the "magic" words- Ambient and Deep Atmospheric Electronic Music......, that should do the trick!

Anyway, the wisest and more deserving way to rate Oophoi is to do it in his self created and unique fields, his own progressive/drone/electronic works, which , subtly and silently, turn out to be quiet a full load of works. (PA's Oophoi archive, still awaits for collaborators to chip in!)

Therefore in comparison to his own works 3.5 PA stars, in a general (and uneven) race, 4 PA stars, but as told I am going to stick to rating him against himself, he deserves it!

***3.5 PA stars.

Gianluigi Gasparetti's (1958 - 2013) aka Oophoi, "Bardo", 2002, is an almost sunken progressive electronic treasure , discovered by few and the kind of masterwork that will only find its true magnitude in perceptive electronic, prog/electronic music followers. BARDO is deep, creative, uncommonly attractive and unique in *almost all of its forms, structures, music language and music composition. *(If not for a quiet used vocal/chorus treatment on track 3 "A Path Of The Lights",I would have written all).

Flawless in all these regards and dwelling relentesly between highly beautiful melody lines and detached, dreamy/industrial/obscure/dim-lighted environments simultaneously, it grows deeper as its slow paced motion progresses and these common elements never cease or weaken in any form but only through a pitch-perfect transformation guided by the increasingly inspired melody lines, which dictaminate the course to be taken.

4 fully attired tracks, unique in concept and appearance each, invite the listener to pay full attention to its subtle delicacies, but their trance/hypnotic essence is upfront and quivering with fresh proposals and details to entice your attention easily.

A masterwork from any given angle!

*****5 "FULL" PA stars.

If you can imagine two contradictory, fully dressed to their bare naked sonic width, melody lines, playing alongside their opposite mood and creating a very hard to turn down, hypnotic, progressive/electronic, DRONE (shoegaze) like, earthly/cosmic journey whose slow motion pace, demands full attention (heavy duty prog heads this is where you skip this review), well you are in for a ride!

Somehow this Oophoi & Tau Ceti "Celestial Geometries", 2001, just pulls it off by sheer great music composition. Two minds, without diminishing their own human souls, interact to construct this extremely well balanced friendship between, otherwise, impossible worlds into one.

To their many advantages, they take all the time needed, but not a mili-second more. A seven compositions, 70 minutes release, with unique identities on each track, makes this trip rich in these always counterpointed approaches and emotions.

As if the final destruction of the world met its match in its Big Bang! High flying hopes, deep down bottom fears simultaneously and with an extremely slow, minimalistic, yet highly attractive music composition to keep you hooked if you are willing.

*****5 PA stars.

Oöphoi "Bardo" CD

Even if "Bardo" was released long time ago, back in 2002 on Russian Electroshock Records, with this review I would like to pay a little tribute to sole protagonist of Oöphoi, Gianluigi "Gigi" Gasparetti, who has recently passed away after a long fight with illness at the age of 55 years.

I consider "Bardo" as one of the most treasured and influential works of this Italian drone shaman. Yes, undoubtedly "Bardo" is absolutely fascinating sonic voyage beyond the gates, accomplishing the state of sheer contemplation and transcendence. Based on Bardo, which means in Tibetan Buddhism a state between death and rebirth, the intermediate state. There are six states of Bardo, the album focuses on four of them. The journey unfolds with "Samten Bardo - Contemplation" (Bardo of Meditation), which dives deeply into mammoth sonic cave, where monstrous drone tsunami is occasionally reinforced by various primordial reverberations, ominous voices and tremulous hums. An ultimate sonic therapy!!! And appropriate exercise for your speakers too... Drone meditations have never sounded more grandiose and immersing, this is a track for your Throne of Drones!!! Flatlined drones invade "Chikai Bardo - Dissolution" (Bardo of the Course of Death), but soon they are united with eerie, hallucinogenic voices and assorted industrialized dissonances (some of them evoking screeching sounds of the passing train). Stunningly weird, but intense and stimulating deep trance-ambient solitudes. Ear- and mind-bending too... This deeply meditative drone odyssey overlaps also to the next composition, "Chonyi Bardo - A Path Of The Lights" (Bardo of the After-death). Intriguing mystery soon reveals, when exotic embellishments and sparse gongs and bells join this long-form piece, clocking to 29 minutes. After about 8 minutes Tibetan Buddhist Monks begin chanting their prayers along with ear-tickling percussions here and there and shift this composition into absolutely essential and magnificent high-altitude plateau. Slowly droning and gradually expanding into gracefully spectacular pilgrimage site. Yes, this is a truly unforgettable aural adventure that everyone must experience to reach this spiritual oasis!!! This is for me, along with David Parsons' "Mani", a true Sagarmāthā among the Tibetan Buddhism-infused ambient contemplations!!! "Sipai Bardo - Crossing The Bridge Of Existence The Eternal Cycle" (Bardo of the Rebirth within Samsara) blossoms with low rumbling drone expansions, ghostly voices and diverse noisier disruptions, and smoothly cascades and culminates through immense, mysteriously permeated terrains, before reaching powerfully intense pinnacle, a grand finale I must say!!!

"Bardo" is one of the many milestones in Oöphoi's amazing discography!!! But the words are pouring very hard and I am not ashamed of tears in my eyes as the Lord of unfathomable drones now continues his journey beyond the gates of this world with kindred spirits such as Klaus and Kristian. Grazie Gigi, grazie grande Oöphoi, you will never be forgotten!!!

Richard Gürtler (Apr 20, 2013, Bratislava, Slovakia)

There is not much to say about Oophoi. The soundscapes that Gianluigi are cool and relaxing, but the "music", if you wish to call it that, is no where near the quality of artists like Steve Roach or Brian Eno, two exemplary ambient artists. It is unfair to compare this music to that of the masters, but being a fan of ambient music, there was really nothing engaging about this album. When listened to in the right setting (you be the judge of that) it can actually be quite interesting. I listened to the album when I was trying to fall asleep, which is not a bad thing, because good ambient music has a calming effect on your mind, but there was nothing but droning textures.

Oophoi's music is quite relaxing and that's about it. There is nothing special here, just your typical ambient artist.