HYMNS TO A SILENT SKY

I was pleasantly surprised to find Oöphoi on progarchives. This kind of album stands a long way down the line of development from the atmospheric elements of electronic prog to the pure atmospherics and abstract tone manipulation of some more recent ambient and drone music, where rhythm and song form are left behind. The second side of Klaus Schulze's Timewind might be a more familiar reference point, except Hymns to a Silent Sky is much less busy and kinetic. If you can imagine yourself complaining about there being no melody, no vocals, no beat, and no rock, look elsewhere. If, however, you are someone for whom deep abstraction is not an impediment, patience is in good supply, and slow, evocative soundscapes fully count as music, I highly recommend this album. It has long been one of my favorites among a personal collection of 2300 albums in this sub-genre of abstract ambient sound paintings.

As the evocative album title might suggest, the general ambience here is austere, sparse, spacious. The music evokes a cold expanse using synths and samples. In Beyond These Skies, astringent synth tones swell and fade like passing clouds. Fragile Beauty is at first more gaseous, a susurration of insects on a misty evening, then moves into echoing drips punctuating a dark, cavernous space in which slow synth moans swell and decay at intervals. (The sky conceit seems a little weaker here, but I suppose one can contemplate the sky from within a dripping canyon, and the earthbound water sounds act as a nice foil to the silent skies.) Ominous tones swirl around more ethereal shafts of light. The insects return, more foregrounded. There is a sense of calm mystery. The tracks continue to increase in length with the 21-minute centerpiece, The Unbearable Sadness of Memories. Here an obscure descending tone is half-submerged in a pulsing hum, with a sharp, echoing, percussive sound at intervals of several seconds creating a sense of 3D depth, the whole again encased in a suggestion of space. After 5 minutes or so, a simple, slow melody is suggested and long, high tones come plaintively to the fore. Elusive, distant sounds (voices? birds?) visit briefly. The percussive sound returns, until there is a shift in the last few minutes to what I can only describe as a growing tremor framed by a wind. The elements are simple but the result is hypnotic, evocative. Night Psalm relieves the intensity - it's less than 12 minutes long and brighter in tone, with synth voices faintly suggestive of the choral and arranged in something almost approaching a melody, albeit a slow, shifting, drifting, overlapping melody. Finally, Let the Night Sky Envelop Us closes on a reflective note, still in drift mode; soft-focus tones are accompanied by a rustle of subtle percussive sounds.

As some of the song titles suggest, the album is held together by a broad concept. In the CD liner notes, Gasparetti dedicates the album "to all the people who feel attracted by the beauty and the mysteries of the sky." The tracks evoke an austere space unmarked by human presence and possessing a harsh beauty, with sparse earthly sounds as context. After 20 or so listens the album still holds my attention and refreshes my ear.

If I consult only my own tastes, it's a 5-star album, a masterful expression of its specific genre, close to perfect in the precision and restraint of its execution. Is it essential progressive rock? That's harder to claim. Sounds like this seem inherently niche and likely very subjective even when masterful. I'll settle for a 4 here in the name of caution, but please add a mental star if you enjoy the more abstract, beatless, atmospheric end of things.