Würm Series I - Oophoi - An aerial view - Glacial Movements Records - 2008

First Review

An Aerial View é o CD inaugural das Würm Series, uma sequência paralela que a Glacial Movements vai dedicar a álbuns compostos por uma única faixa, tematicamente inspirados pela última glaciação europeia. O termo "Würm" é a designação dessa glaciação, que terminou há cerca de 10 mil anos, e tem origem num rio dos Alpes onde ela foi primeiramente identificada. No ponto máximo dessa Idade do Gelo a maior parte da Europa era estepe-tundra, com a Escandinávia e Ilhas Britânicas sob uma camada de gelo, tal como a cordilheira dos Alpes, também sob campos de gelo e glaciares. É este tipo de paisagem que serve de ponto de partida para "An Aerial View (For Theremin And Synths)" de Oophoi, um tema a rondar os 65 minutos, preenchidos pelo ambientalismo etéreo e frio que tem caracterizado as edições da etiqueta italiana. Evitando as tonalidades mais sombrias que tantas vezes surgem associadas a este tipo de imaginário, Oophoi preferiu associar-se a uma paleta sonora mais aberta e luminosa, num enquadramento de grandes planos – a "vista aérea" a que se refere o título e espelhada nas fotografias do digipak - como uma silenciosa viagem de balão sobre um manto de neves perpétuas, moldadas lentamente pelos elementos naturais. An Aerial View é um longo travelling sonoro, de textura mais dinâmica na primeira parte, animada por sons circulares e loops aspirados de ressonância metálica, para assumir na segunda metade uma estrutura mais minimal de sons, em notas alongadas que se sobrepõem em inúmeras camadas, deslizando em sentido único - aproveitando a invulgar capacidade do teremin para desenhar drones vítreos e cristalinos – rumo a um estado final de suspensão que faz lembrar a "Discreet Music" de Eno. Oophoi, ou Gianluigi Gasparetti, um dos nomes mais marcantes do actual ambientalismo europeu, tem em An Aerial View um disco a não perder, capaz de anular a passagem do tempo e envolvente do primeiro ao último instante. (AP) [s13-8]

DISTORSOM

Second Review

Six releases before the year 2000, one release in the year the world could have ended and as the world didn't end, Gianluigi Gasparetti dedicated himself to making ambient and released seventy-four titles since. Alone under the name Oophoi or in collaboration with many artists of which Klaus Wiese is just one of them.

Admittedly, his works are mostly unknown to me except for a sampler contribution here and there, so An Aerial View is a nice place to start exploring his mind. And his mind is one that perfectly fits in the scene of Italian ambient artists. Nice long-stretched pads and strings under a bouquet of miniature pre-recorded sounds and modulations.

The subtitle of this album is "for theremin and synths" which seems to be referring to the source of these recordings. The fact that synths are being used is quite obvious in the aural spectrum, but even after several listenings I can't find the theremin-sound. Not that it devaluates the music, hell no!

The soundscape presented is just what a soundscape should be - nice, filling the empty spaces, giving you enough perspective to follow it on both high volume as well as background-volume. And as stated before: True Italian ambience, so if Hic Sunt Leones and Amplexus releases are your 'thing', do not hesitate to dive into the ice-cold world that is Wurm.

The Wurm-series is a new sub-division of Glacial Movements, but I must admit that I miss the deeper contemplation of creating a sub-label at this moment in time. Both divisions focus on ambient in a cold environment and this is only the fourth release from Glacial Movements. The future might explain it, we just have to wait on yet another nice release from Italy.

Grade: 7.4
Review by: Bauke

GOTHTRONIC

Third Review

Poised as it is, as the first official release in Glacial Movements’ “WURM” series, Oophoi offer up a glistening, expansive ambient workout, not unlike several of the multitude of ambient artists operating at the turn of the noughties. Oophoi summarise their work as an “airy drone with minimal variations”, actively attempting to side step some of the pitfalls and cliches attached to any sonic interpretation of cold and icy landscapes, and in doing so, manage to summon up some of the energy reminiscent of the early era of ambient music.

The WURM series was offered up to artists to create uninterrupted, long- form pieces of atmospherics relating to the WURM period of glaciation, giving each artist an opportunity for truly immersive and engaging work, intended to “..describe the endless ice age, its eternal ice, the blinding white light, the abyssal silence, a music that will transport the listener to peaceful, unexplored lands..”. Thus reads the GM press release for the series, and this first release does the job admirably. An Aerial View could easily eclipse Eno’s “Apollo” series in its prescriptive and slowly unfolding sensibility, it washes and waves, its serenity and gentility only minutely disturbed by luminous tones from theremin and synthesisers, actively drawing the listener into a world and an age beyond present day comprehension. Best listend to in a calm and undisturbed room, devoid of any distractions, An Aerial View is best appreciated in one sitting. Original and ground breaking it is not..but if you are in need of aural sedative, or sonic balm, this is truly the album for you. Highly recommended. BGN

WHITE LINE

Fourth Review

Written by Simon Marshall-Jones

Italy's Alessandro Tedeschi (the man behind both the ambient Netherworld outfit and Glacial Movements) seems to be waging a one-man campaign through his label to make us aware of the fragility of the icy snowbound environments situated at both poles of our planet. This release, by fellow Italian ambient artist Oöphoi (Gianluigi Gasparetti), is the label's fourth foray and steadfastly continues the tradition set by the previous three in bringing extended and hauntingly crystalline sound explorations of these threatened environments.

Glacial Movements

Oöphoi here regales us with a delicately sparkling, shimmering meditation on that very fragile nature of the pristine ice-sheets floating on the waters of the northern and southern extremities of this globe—an endangered fragility made even more topical with the news that large cracks are appearing in the massive Wilkins ice-shelf in Antarctica and that glacier-loss is accelerating. Oöphoi brings this matter to our attention through the medium of just over 65 minutes of minimalist drone, composed of slowly evolving and minutely changing synth washes providing a dreamlike backdrop for the ghostly voice of a solitary theremin, perhaps lamenting and bewailing the complacency and the careless attitude with which the human species disregards the health of his only home. The net result being a long slowly-unwinding Eno-esque ambientscape, describing a world where mankind has very rarely set foot simply because of an accident of geography and climatology, a place of endless stretches of white populated only by polar creatures supremely adapted to these harsh conditions, yet still, paradoxically, a place where the reach of man's shortsightedness has had, and continues to have, a profoundly damaging effect.

What I took from this was the shiveringly haunting beauty gracing one of the last true wildernesses left on this much-traversed and explored world of ours, a beauty bathed for at least half the year in utter darkness, the skies only occasionally enlivened by the playful auroral visitations splashing themselves across the vast expanse of midnight blue, the stars peeking out from behind the shimmering veil of electrons like some shy maiden. Oophoi's soundscapes capture that essential crispness of the polar air, where everything takes on a clarity unavailable elsewhere, where the light from billions of tiny pinpoints of light reach us and put on a gloriously unashamed display, perhaps because of the very fact that there are very few witnesses around. The whole sound, just like the land itself, welcomes the listener wholeheartedly with a coldly soporific and torpid embrace, enveloping one with a desire to do nothing but lie back and let the imagined warmth overwhelm, until life itself becomes a dream slipping through numb fingers.

This harks back to the early experiments in ambient soundscapes, gently wafting, swirling and mesmerising, unhurried, just like the slow progress of the glaciers and floes of ice flowing on the frigid seas of these ice-bound regions. Deeply spiritual in many ways and deeply moving, unfolding with a stately pace befitting the rhythm of life in these stark deserts of ice and snow, this album was, for me, redolent of both crisply cold but sun-lit winter mornings, or that part of the day when the blue skies of the day have given way to the deep purples and blues of twilight, the time when the stars emerge from the wings in order to put on their nightly show. This is shatteringly beautiful, scintillatingly frozen, and stunningly magnificent ambience.

BRAINWASHED

Fifth Review

‘An Aerial View’ is the first release in minimalist drone label ‘Glacial Movements’ WURM series. WURM is the name of the World’s most recent glaciation which ended around 10000 years ago. A glaciation that turned most of Europe and Eurasia into open steppe-tundra whilst Scandinavia and much of Britain were under ice. With ‘An Aerial View’, Oophoi attempts to describe the ‘Ice Age’ with an uninterrupted 60 minutes of drone. Taking the form of a solitary entity in-flight over the vast, uncontaminated expanse, Oophoi concentrates on sonically portraying the uninterrupted white landscape and abyssal silence through a combination of delicate Theremin tones and minimalist airy-drone that drift listlessly across a spacious expanse.

The eerie Eno-esque piece ebbs and flows enchantingly like micro ripples in an otherwise static sea of icy water and within these macro thematic’s, rhythmic tones swell and contract organically whilst murmuring winds gush in a subtle and inviting manner. The ambivalent melodic drift that meanders throughout the track makes the most of the ‘alien’ and ‘surreal’ sounds associated with the Theramin to result in a piece that is almost angelic in its execution, moving the listener to some sort of unexplained sonic enlightenment. It is literally like a slow-motion capture of light particles reflecting off the blinding white ice, a reaction that leaves the listener in a warm and fuzzy cosmic-daze.

In today’s society where everything is pre-conditioned around being delivered immediately, Oophoi has nearly halted the flow of time, reducing it to a non-entity. The fact that the timer on the CD player is counting is almost an affront to the aesthetic of the piece. With ‘An Aerial View’, Oophoi has continued the rich tradition of classy ambience exuded by the specialist ‘Glacial Movements’ label and has succeeded in achieving his aim of scoring the soundtrack to the flowing and uninterrupted white of the Ice-Age. Ultimately, ‘An Aerial View’ is an album to score ones societal regression, a 60 minute hibernation of the listener to cerebrally disengage with society and engage with the infinite expanse of the harsh yet beautiful tundra. (KS)


EXPERIMUSIC

Sixth Review

Oophoi’s An Aerial View is the first release in Glacial Movement Records' Würm Series whose music is to be an aural metaphor of the Earth’s most recent glacial period.

With over a decade's worth of experience in composing ambient music in all of its manifold varities, Oophoi [Gianluigi Gasparetti ] delivers his first full length ablum on Glacial Movements Records. His discography consists of a wealth of CD and CD-R releases on international labels going back to the mid 1990's. In composing his music, he uses conventional electronic devices such as synthesizers and sampling machines as well flutes, singing bowls, wood chimes, crystal chimes, and processed voices.

Listening to the album for the first (without having noticed the artist’s notes printed on the inside cover) I was actually somewhat taken aback. Anticipating some dark, cold, cavernous soundscape of low, rumbling bass frequencies exploiting the isolationism and trepidation that is associated with desolate, frozen panoramas, the light sounds that met my ears were the antithesis of what I thought that I was going to hear.

Having ended between some 10,000 and 15,000 years ago, this most recent glaciation is named after the Würm River (a river in the Alps where it was first discovered). Like those immense, white, sparkling ice fields, An Aerial View is a spacious, gradually unfolding, cyclic, awe-inspiring ambient composition which the artist describes as a “homage to a pure, incontaminated, and remote land.” Oophoi‘s exapnsive, 65-minute cinematic drone captures in sound the profound beauty and strangeness of the glacial topography and the shimmering drones emulate the blinding sunlight that reflects off of the icy landscape. To create this work that he describes as “an airy drone with minimal variations and delicate theremin tones“, he imagined himself flying over this place as a “solitary winged-being surround by winds, air, water, and ice.”

An Aerial View is a beautiful, long-form ambient-drone work from a well established artist. It's a solid start to the label's Würm Series and leaves me anxiously awaiting the next release in the series.

EARLABS

Seventh Review

Rating : 7.5

Se c'è un artista che in Italia non ha davvero bisogno di presentazioni in ambito prettamente ambient (e sperimentale in genere), quello è senza dubbio Gianluigi Gasparetti, attivo a livello discografico col progetto Oophoi (oppure Oöphoi, come riportato a più riprese in altre uscite) da 12 anni e con alle spalle oltre 20 produzioni per svariate etichette del sottobosco ambientale. Un nome rispettato che ha saputo conquistarsi molta considerazione in ambito internazionale, al punto di approdare persino alla corte dell'eterea Prikosnovénie per un superbo album a quattro mani con la sempre ottima cantautrice australiana Louisa John-Krol. Gianluigi inizia oggi una collaborazione con la giovane ad attenta Glacial Movements, inaugurando la "Würm Series" con questo suo nuovo lavoro, costituito da un'unica traccia che sfora ampiamente l'ora di durata. La descrizione riportata all'interno del digipak, a cura dello stesso Gasparetti, ci spiega chiaramente quale sia l'intento di questa release: su esplicita richiesta di creare un drone ininterrotto per descrivere l'era glaciale (vero pallino concettuale della Glacial Movements), il Nostro ha inteso liberarsi dei cliché del genere, immaginando di volare sopra la distesa artica e giungendo così alla creazione di un drone aereo dai toni delicati con variazioni minime, come in una sorta di omaggio alla purezza di tali terre incontaminate. Una descrizione perfettamente calzante che racchiude in sé tutto quello che c'è da sapere su questa release, l'ennesima di una carriera il cui prestigio è sotto gli occhi di tutti ed è riconosciuto a livello internazionale. Emanazioni sonore leggere come una piuma nel vento (gelido), ottenute col solo ausilio di theremin e synth. Sia che siate dei completisti o semplici fan delle sonorità di Gianluigi, sia che queste sonorità stuzzichino la vostra curiosità di ascoltatori, questo è un disco che merita la vostra attenzione, non solo per la qualità intrinseca che da sempre accompagna le uscite a nome Oophoi, ma anche e soprattutto per l'effettiva riuscita del progetto in esame.

Roberto Alessandro Filippozzi - DARKROOM MAGAZINE

Eight Review

Ambience. How do you review ambient records? Put on your best beard and stroke it firmly but slowly? I must have a troubled mind for I get massively soothed by this sort of thing. A CD has landed in my knarled fist from Oophoi called 'An Aeriel View'. 65 mins of drifting theremin and stress devouring synth. It's got that Biosphere/Brian Eno touch I like so much. It's involving, very moving yet absolutely un-intrusive, incidental music for the calmest recesses of your soul. This 1 track could put the world to rights I reckon. If you've checked out & liked stuff on Geir Jenssen's Biophon imprint then this lovely chunk of audio bliss on Glacial Movements could just be your hour long ride out of this crazy mixed up muddled up world for the week!

NORMAN RECORDS
 

Nineth Review

Oophoi (real name Gianluigi Gasparetti) uses theremin and synths as sonic tools to build the sixty-five minute dronescape An Aerial View. In aurally suggesting endless, silent expanses, he opts for lightness and delicacy, imagining himself “in flight over this Sleeping Earth, a solitary winged-being surrounded by winds, air, water, and ice.” The result is a crystalline and tranquil work tailor-made to induce becalmed relaxation (its occasional rhythmic exhalations can't help but suggest breathing). Though it's not an entirely cliché-free work—ambient whooshes and splashing waves do surface—, An Aerial View is pretty and, furthermore, often affecting in its predominantly melancholy spirit. When halfway through Gasparetti turns the lights down and reduces the sound to willowy, organ-like synth tones only, the effect is gloriously peaceful—as if one is floating in deep space, with everything slowing incrementally towards perfect stillness. Incidentally, he not only resists exploiting the theremin's warble potential but integrates the instrument so thoroughly into the whole the uninformed listener would guess all sounds are synth-generated. An Aerial View is the first in the label's proposed Wurm series (the term comes from a river in the Alps where the world's most recent glaciation was first identified) whereby the artist attempts to capture the “abyssal silence” of the Ice Age in sound and on that count it succeeds very well indeed.

TEXTURA

Tenth Review

"I have imagined myself in flight over this Sleeping Earth, a solitary winged-being surrounded by winds, air, water and ice .” "I have imagined myself in flight over this Sleeping Earth, a solitary winged-being surrounded by wind, air, water and ice.
"

Der Alpenraum von oben: Im Flug über endlose, dieses Mal mitteleuropäische Eisfelder geht es auf der neusten Veröffentlichung von OOPHOI. The Alpine region from the top: In the endless flight over, this time in Central Eisfelder is on the latest publication of OOPHOI. „An Aerial View“ heißt diese passenderweise, und ist erschienen auf dem italienischen Label GLACIAL MOVEMENTS RECORDS , wo sie die ambienten Erkundungen des ewigen Eises fortsetzt – und zugleich eine neue Reihe innerhalb der Reihe aufmacht: Die WÜRM SERIES, benannt nach der Würmkaltzeit, einer großräumigen Vergletscherung im Alpenraum. "An Aerial View" is aptly this, and has been released on the Italian label GLACIAL MOVEMENTS RECORDS, where they ambienten explorations of eternal ice continues - and a new series within the series aufmacht: The WÜRM SERIES, named after the Würmkaltzeit, Vergletscherung large in the Alpine region. Diese fand vor etwa 115.000 bis 10.000 Jahren ungefähr parallel zur skandinavischen Weichseleiszeit im Norden statt und bescherte uns neben einigen landschaftlichen Besonderheiten unter anderem den Bodensee, den Starnbergersee und den Chiemsee. This was about 115,000 to 10,000 years, roughly parallel to the Scandinavian Ice Age Vistula in the north, and brought us some special features scenic Lake, among other things, the Starnberger lake and the Chiemsee.


Für den ersten Teil dieser neuen Serie, die in Zukunft locker innerhalb des GLACIAL - Programms fortgesetzt werden soll, konnte der Labelgründer GIANLUIGI GASPARETTI alias (in variierender Schreibung) OOPHOI oder OÖPHOI gewinnen, der seit seiner ersten Veröffentlichung 1996 auf dem ALIO DIE-Label HIC SUNT LEONES recht produktiv für Output sorgt; auf den eigenen Labels UMBRA und PENUMBRA und auf verschiedenen anderen, wie etwa den russischen FARIA RECORDS , beim AMPLEXUS - Sublabel AURORA oder bei den Franzosen von PRIKOSNOVÉNIE. For the first part of this new series in the future within the locker GLACIAL - Program should be continued, could the label founder GIANLUIGI GASPARETTI alias (variations in spelling) OOPHOI or OÖPHOI win, since its first publication in 1996, the label ALIO THE HIC SUNT LEONES quite productive output shall, on its own labels and UMBRA PENUMBRA and various others, such as the Russian FARIA RECORDS, while AMPLEXUS - Sublabel AURORA or Frenchman of PRIKOSNOVÉNIE. In diesem Zusammenhang ist übrigens das 2005 eben dort veröffentliche Album „I Hear The Water Dreaming“ unbedingt hervorhebenswert, eine Zusammenarbeit mit LOUISA JOHN-KROL, welche die ambienten Klänge OOPHOIs mit der Mystik und der sphärischen, überirdischen Stimme von JOHN-KROLs „Alexandria“ zu etwas Entrückendem verbindet. In this context, is also there in 2005 just published the album "I Hear the Water Dreaming" is absolutely hervorhebenswert, a collaboration with LOUISA JOHN KROL-which ambienten sounds OOPHOIs with mysticism and the spherical, supernatural voice of JOHN-KROLs "Alexandria" Entrückendem to something.


Als er gebeten wurde, für GLACIAL MOVEMENTS die Eiszeit mit einem einzigen langen Drone zu beschreiben, wollte GASPARETTI die typischen Vorstellungen, die man damit vielleicht verbinden könnte – düsteres Rumoren, den massiven Einsatz tiefer Frequenzen, kalte Atmosphäre – vermeiden und eine andere Art von „Drone“ schaffen. When he was asked for GLACIAL MOVEMENTS the Ice Age with a single long drone to describe the typical GASPARETTI wanted ideas that perhaps you could combine - Rumoren gloomy, the massive use low frequencies, cold atmosphere - and avoid a different kind of " Drone ". Dieser sollte mehr die weiße Stille und Unberührtheit der Landschaft beschreiben, die klare, kalte Helligkeit, die blendend von den weißen Einöden reflektiert wird – mit Blick auf die Unberührtheit und Reinheit eines noch nicht von menschlicher Zivilisation vergifteten Landes. This should be more white silence of the unspoiled landscape and describe the clear, cold brightness, the dazzling white of the Einöden reflected - with a view to the unspoiled and purity of an as yet of human civilization poisoned country. Ausdruck findet dies in einem hellen, über die gesamte Spielzeit von 65,07 Minuten relativ wenig variierten, nun, nennen wir es ruhig Drone, der unterschwellig mehr oder weniger intensiv dröhnende Unterbau lässt dies wohl zu. Expressed this in a bright, covering the whole playing time of 65.07 minutes varied relatively little, well, let's calm Drone, subliminally more or less intense dröhnende substructure is probably this. Mit den finsteren Vertretern des Genres hat das Stück, das seinen kühlen, hellen Charakter aus glasigen Theremin- und Synthesizer-Klängen bezieht, tatsächlich wenig gemein. With the sinister representatives of the genre, the piece, with its cool, bright character vitreous Theremin and synthesizer sounds applies, in fact little in common. Und voilà , die interne Vorstellungswelt liefert anstandslos: Eis, Wind, Schneeflächen. And voil à the internal imagination anstandslos world supplies: ice, wind, snow surfaces. Ohne nun die Bemerkung strapazieren zu wollen, dass lichte Eiswelten zwar nicht dem Düster-Dröhn-Klischee entsprechen, nun aber auch keine Neuerfindung sind (was damit implizit getan wäre; ich würde sogar von zwei Eisklischees ausgehen: Das eine finster dröhnend und rumpelnd und mit jeder Menge Verzerrungen, und das andere, nun, licht, hell und eisig eben), gibt es an dem Ergebnis objektiv nichts auszusetzen. Without the remark now strain to try to clear that the Eiswelten not Düster-Dröhn-cliché, but now no reinvention (what would be done so implicitly, I would even Eisklischees out of two: one dark and rumbling and booming with lots of distortions, and the other, well, light, bright and icy precisely), there are at the outcome objectively nothing wrong. Handwerklich versiert gemacht – auch, wenn auf die gesamte Spielzeit gesehen ein wenig mehr der anfänglichen Dynamik (= etwas mehr Dröhnen), sprich, doch etwas mehr Varianz, nicht abträglich gewesen wäre. Handwerklich versed made - even if the entire season seen a little more of the initial momentum (a little more roaring), in other words, but little more variance, would not be prejudicial. Ansonsten: alles sehr sphärisch und meditativ, schön weiß, schön kühl und schimmernd, die Idee von unberührter vormenschlicher Natur ist ansprechend genug, und nicht zuletzt Daumen hoch für die ansprechend schlichte, in eisigen Farben gehaltene Gestaltung des Digipacks – ganz, wie man es von den GLACIAL MOVEMENTS- - Veröffentlichungen kennt, eine Optik, die durchaus zum Markenzeichen werden könnte. Otherwise, everything spherical and very meditative, beautiful white, beautiful cool and gleaming, the idea of vormenschlicher unspoiled nature is appealing enough, and not least for the thumbs-up attractively simple, held in icy colors design of the Digi pack - just as it is of GLACIAL the-MOVEMENTS - Publications knows, a lens that is definitely a trademark could be.

Eine kleine Anmerkung zum Schluss: Es fragt sich allerdings, von welchem Meer die Rede ist, wenn es im Inlay Text heißt: „… white landscape, the blinding light reflected by frozen oceans .“ Wir erinnern uns: Das Ganze ist Teil der WÜRM SERIES, theoretisch geht es also um die vereisten Alpen. A small note at the end: The question is, however, the sea from which speech is when the inlay text says: "… white landscape, the blinding light reflected by frozen oceans." We remember: The whole thing is part of the WÜRM SERIES Theoretically it is also the icy Alps. Vielleicht ist, falls es mit eingefroren war, das Mittelmeer gemeint? Maybe if it was frozen, the Mediterranean? Aber gut, wir wollen nicht kleinlich sein, dies ist wirklich nur eine kleine Anmerkung, und zur Not tut es auch eine imaginäre Geographie. Anyway, we do not want to be fussy, this is really just a small comment, and it does not even an imaginary geography."

NONPOP.DE

Eleventh Review

I o to najnowsze wydawnictwo tej nowej włosko - lodowatej wytwórni. Przy którejś z poprzednich recenzji tego wydawnictwa pozwoliłem sobie nieśmiało porównać Glacial Movements z Cyclic Law i chyba faktycznie coś w tym jest, gdyż opisywane właśnie najnowsze "dziecko" tego labelu równie dobrze mogłoby ukazać się właśnie w wymienionym wyżej kanadyjskim labelu, wszak muzyka to bardzo podobna.
"An Aerial View" projektu OOPHOI to pierwsza cześć cyklu Würm Series bazującego na mrocznych, lodowatych otchłaniach ponurego, odhumanizowanego dark ambientu. Spoglądając na sama okładkę i oprawę wizualną płyty już można doskonale stwierdzić jakimi to dźwiękami uracza nas OOPHOI. Jeden długi utwór trwający ponad 65 minut przynosi nam muzykę piękną, delikatną ale i mroczną, tajemniczą i smutną zarazem. Delikatne lekkie melodie, nałożone na to posępne drony i tym podobne buczenia to elementy, które towarzyszą krążkowi od pierwszych do ostatnich sekund. Aż czuć tu ponury, zimno-skandymawski klimat. Co prawda wiele głosów pojawiło się już, że co to niby można jeszcze wymyślić jeśli chodzi o ten najmroczniejszy, izolacjonistyczny gatunek dark ambientu, ale w tej materii nie ma co silić na się niewiadomo jakie nowinki, kombinacje czy udziwnienia. Ta muzyka po prostu stworzona jest do generowania smutnych, melancholijnych i ponurych nastrojów, co OOPHOI wykonał wręcz podręcznikowo. Z płyty emanuje taki chłód i lód, że tylko nielicznym udaje się stworzyć temu podobny klimat. Inspiracje i fascynacje wczesnym NORTHAUNT'em są tu aż nadto wyczuwalne. Płyty naprawdę słucha się wybornie i rewelacyjnie mimo, że za oknem mamy aurę zupełnie nie pasująca do dźwięków płynących z głośników. Przygnębienie, ból, smutek, brak jakiejkolwiek nadziei to motywy charakterystyczne dla muzyki OOPHOI. Słuchając tego krążka w genialny sposób można "odpłynąć", zapomnieć o wszystkim i wszystkich i idealnie wręcz oczyścić swoją duszę z wszelkich problemów. Mnie szczerze mówiąc ta płyta urzekła i jeśli chodzi o mroźne, zimne dark ambientowe wydawnictwa plasuję się bardzo wysoko w moim prywatnym rankingu. Jeśli jesteście wielkimi fanami tego, co robi SVARTSINN, INSTINCTS, wspomniany wcześniej NORTHAUNT czy też wydawnictwa rodem z Cyclic Law sięgnijcie po "An Aerial View" a z pewnością nie będziecie zawiedzeni.
Genialna płyta na samotne, długie ciemne wieczory. Polecam!!!!!

BEAST OF PREY

Twelve Review

Isso mesmo, para quem ainda não conhece, existe um movimento que adora a música Glacial, ártica, polar, névica, e iceberguica. Sim, a gravadora Glacial Moviments só lança músicas neste estilo, onde confesso ser muito difícil de se resenhar. Primeiro, por ser um estilo desconhecido para mim. Segundo, por ser música inteiramente instrumental. Terceiro, por não entender nada de musical polar e glacial, por mais que eu goste de frio, inverno e tal. Afinal, o clima polar é inimaginável para nós. Assim, há pouca diferenciação entre as bandas desta gravadora. Aqui temos um projeto meio esquimó, para fãs de Steve Roach, Alio Die e Mathias Grassow. Outra coisa, An Aerial View é composto de uma faixa só, a própria An Aerial View, com mais de 65 minutos de duração. Além disso, dentro deste movimento, An Aerial View é o CD inaugural das Würm Series, uma sequência paralela que a Glacial Movements vai dedicar a álbuns compostos por uma única faixa, tematicamente inspirados pela última glaciação européia. Para te situar, fãs de Progressivo, Ethereal, Dark Ambient e Dark Wave e só Ambient podem gostar, embora o estilo seja totalmente diferente, estando mais para o clássico do que para o Rock e Dark. Indicados para pessoas que tenham paciência para ouvir uma só música com mais de uma hora de duração. O termo "Würm" é a designação dessa glaciação, que terminou há cerca de 10 mil anos, e tem origem num rio dos Alpes onde ela foi primeiramente identificada. No ponto máximo dessa Idade do Gelo a maior parte da Europa era estepe-tundra, com a Escandinávia e Ilhas Britânicas sob uma camada de gelo, tal como a cordilheira dos Alpes, também sob campos de gelo e glaciares. PR – 7,5

ROCK UNDERGROUND

Thirteen Review

This is the forth release from the glacier and isolation ambient label  Glacial Movements and the first in the Würm series- Würm is the name of the earth smost recent glaciations some 10000 years ago. An aerial view certainly is very hypnotic and beautiful piece of slowly unfolding ambience that really does conjure up been slowly carried along on the crest of the wind over vast expanse of white landscape, which often glitters below you like a vast white jewel desert. To start the piece Oophoi  dwells in swirling and windswept harmonics asif you travelling back through the mists of time the landscape changing around you. At about the 3 minute mark the soothing central harmonic drone risers slightly as you find your self on the edge of a vast misted ice Plato, you start to rise up and up as the sweet melodic tones uncurl them self’s more and start on your slow flight over enchanting and magical landscape. You Feeling the wonder and the awe of the changing contours of the ice mass below you, the sunlight catching it and the deep shadowy cannons. Oophoi mangers to keep you hypnotised complete through-out the pieces hour flow as he ebbs and flows the harmonic elements around you.

A fine and harmonic slice of ambience that sooths and lulls the world’s weight from around you, Letting you float perfectly and tranquil over a wondrous white mindscape- it’s just a pity when it finally finishers and the spell is broken until next time.

MUSIQUE MACHINE

Fourteen Review

ROCKERILLA

Fifteen Review

BLACK MAGAZINE 48

Sixteen Review

Another super ambient album from Italian imprint Glacial Movements. Oophoi is a long-standing member of the deep ambient community and has provided another intimate, sparse and very beautiful work. 1 track of 65 minutes that slowly morphs and changes using depth, drone, subtle shifts and experimental moments. The sort of thing you want to listen to uniterrupted and on the headphones (as with a lot of this style of music). I've done just that and found it to be a deeply satisfying album. Props to artist and label.
 

SMALLFISH SHOP

Seventeen Review

BROKENDOLLS

Eighteen Review

Nuova divagazione su gelidi temi licenziata dall'etichetta di Alessandro Tedeschi (vedi Quaderni D'Altri tempi numero XI) . Questo episodio inaugura una collana parallela, la Würm Series mettendo subito in chiaro il concept da declinare nella nuova serie: il Würm, appunto, ovvero la quarta glaciazione, l'ultima, conclusasi circa diecimila anni fa. Il battesimo del ghiaccio. è stato affidato a Gianluigi Gasparetti, in arte Oophoi, un progetto musicale nato inequivocabilmente sotto il segno di Klaus Schulze e Steve Roach e poi personalizzato nel tempo. Il musicista romano - già direttore della rivista Deep Listenings, poi purtroppo chiusa - è ormai (iper)attivo da una dozzina d'anni, considerata la già ragguardevole discografia. Oophoi, inoltre, aveva già partecipato con il brano Cold Sun a Cryosphere (2006), un po' l'album/manifesto dell'etichetta. In questa nuova fatica, la suggestione glaciale viene condensata in una sola traccia di oltre un'ora realizzata con synth e theremin. Così equipaggiato Oophoi innalza un autentico suono profondo a tratti impalpabile, sorvolando la distesa artica avvolta in un silenzio abbagliante. Quieto e visionario, animato da struggenti variazioni timbriche, venato di una gelida tristezza. Torna alla mente l'interrogativo nietzschiano: "Non andiamo forse errando in un infinito nulla? Non alita su di noi lo spazio vuoto? Non fa sempre più freddo?".
Un disco che centra pienamente il bersaglio. Pack ancora una volta elegante.
Gennaro Fucile

QUADERNI D'ALTRI TEMPI

Nineteen Review

As if one label weren't enough, Glacial Movements has recently given birth to a boy, with the "Würm Series" sub-imprint focussing on imaginary trecks through the icefields of the most recent glaciation era. It is by no means a coincidence that Gianluigi Gasparetti, aka Oophoi, should present Würm's first emanations, as his musical relationship with Tedeschi has been pivotal in inspiring the latter's development as an artist in his own right. "Every release of this new series will be a circular, slowly-unfolding and ethereal long-form musical piece, in which the artist will describe this endless Ice Age", the Glacial Movements website informs us and the continous 65-minute track offered by Gasparetti caters to these demands with poignant precision.

Of course, the task of being visual with music is next to impossible in absolute terms. Oophoi answers this quest with a change in perspective: "An aerial view" soars up high above, choosing the eagle eye's perspective. Instead of offering an exact morphological descriptions of the glacial topography, it describes a movement, a sensation of serene, divine fluency. It is a tremendously effective psychological trick, especially because the music fits this description perfectly and magically transports its audience back in time and space.

The opening sequence especially is a deeply resonating field, undulating with gentle, minimal and hypnotic melodic tension. For an entire half hour, Gasparetti keeps circling the same tapered axis of calm majesty, building a tension arch by means of timbre and volume. Thanks to its organic musical flow, the piece alludes less to other Ambient isolationists than to early Krautrock releases, reminding of the warm soundscape compositions of Manuel Göttsching in particular.

While environmental noises still provide depth to the sounds in this segment, the second part, which discreetly peels itself off its slender skin, consists of nothing but cool sheets of sound with a tranquil outward movement and complex cycles of inner turbulence. In this silent and endlessly postponed finale, the music comes to complete peace and a near halt, as the final minutes are characterised by a continous fade into the void.

Many have questioned the necessity of this sub-category, unsure about the variation it offers to the regular Glacial Movement releases. With "An aerial View" as its first outing, these doubts no longer seem qualified. The Würm-series is even more about a trance-like state, its obsession with the past implying an approach tending towards the fantastical. Quite possibly, its CDs are even more archetypical than regular Glacial Movements outings - infused by a naive romanticism irresistibly pulling in everyone willing to submit to it.

By Tobias Fischer

TOKAFY
 

Twenty Review

When asked to describe Ice Age with one uninterrupted drone, Italian sound artist Oophoi wanted at all costs to avoid clichés. He had no desire to introduce any "dark rumblings, massive low frequencies, cold atmospheres". Rather, he wanted to paint a white drone with his music. If there's one thing that can immediately be said about "An Aerial View" is that it's airy. Very light textures are played and manipulated on the theremin. Once one set of fluttery phases is gone, it's replaced by a new one that sounds nearly identical to what came before. And on it goes. For 65 minutes, Oophoi lays out the soft, textural tones that gather little momentum and do wonders to calm a tired mind after an exhausting day at the office.

GAZ-ETA issue 66

Twenty-one Review

Posted: Friday, July 18, 2008
By: Jakob Huneycutt
Researcher

An Aerial View takes the listener on a calm, peaceful journey through the Ice Age.This writer's primary guideline for ambient music is that it should immerse one in another world. The listener should feel as if they are being taken to another place and allowed to explore this new reality. From the description in the case of the album, Oöphoi seems to agree with this objective.

Part of Glacial Movements' Würm series, the goal of An Aerial View is to immerse the listener in the Ice Age by painting a "white landscape, [with a] blinding light reflected by frozen oceans, [and an] abyssal silence." Oöphoi describe the album as an "homage to a pure, uncontaminated, and remote land." It took awhile to warm up to the cool, repetitive drone in An Aerial View, but after a few listens, the thaw began. At 65 minutes long, with only one track, you really have to be in the right mood to enjoy this, but it is largely successful at allowing one to escape to a carefree and mostly lifeless world.

REGEN MAGAZINE
 

Twenty-two Review

The first release of minimalist drone label "Glacial Movements"' within the bounds of "WURM" series (is named after the Wurm River where most recent glaciation was first discovered) is a masterpiece of emptiness. It isn't fearful emptiness of the deserted house, isn't strained emptiness before storm, but it is pure crystal-clear and pacified emptiness with no limits and no breaks. Gianluigi Gasparetti as known as Oophoi found ideal-balanced point between heavens and earth, between land and water, between air and airless. Freezing-point in the emptiness symbolizes the Ice Age in this work. It is static view without life, without the past and without future.

There are two parts of perception with this album - musical part and metaphysics part. The first is over 65 minutes drone "for theremin and synths". It is a static flow from one glacial soundscape to another with absolutely artificial sound, sound isn't from Earth but from ideal universe with own rules of balance. The second is a spatial-temporal view of life without any motion. It's strange, but when we observe some natural phenomenon, we could find some movements in them. We usually can see slow flight of the clouds or very-very slow swimming of the icebergs. But Italian master could contrive world without any movement, where even imagining of any pulse of life is impossible. For whom is this world? Beauty is beautiful and perfection is perfect when someone could see and value it. But nobody can do it, because this world is in itself only.

Have you ever seen the field of snow with thin ice crust luminous by the sun (remember famous frame from "Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind")? It is very bright effect, even blinded. And if you close your eyes in that moment you could hear the sound of sun's reflection. It's sound illusion because our eyes remembered bright impression. And new Oophoi work is illusion like this. We can hear some peculiarities in it, which actually are absent. But inverse effect is take place in "An Aerial View" too. Glacial sound makes way for sun and snow images. There are different forms of these images. There are own view for Gianluigi Gasparetti, own for me, own for you and of course it is own for every artist who will produce albums in "WURM" series (Lull is next).

"An Aerial View" stops the moment. Low frequencies, slow textures surround listeners in glacial and fragile world. But it is hard to dive inside deeply, because ice to keep out living. Only lifeless inorganic forms can enjoy this cold sleeping world, where even air, consisting of ice crystals, is static. Nobody is born, nobody dies. Only white color and shining sound are eternal.

HEATHEN HARVEST

Twenty-three Review

Würmské nebo taky viselské zalednění, bylo největší ledové období, z kterého jsme se vyhrabali teprve před nedávnem (cca 15 000 lety). Dalo nejen tvarový charakter polovině Evropy, ale také nové řadě ledových nahrávek vydavatelství Glacial Movements, věnované dlouhým a jednolitým mrazivým trackům.

Prvním pánem na holení je Ital Gianluigi Gasparetti vulgo Oophoi, který znovu přichází s originálním konceptem. „Když jsem byl osloven hudebně uchopit Ledovou dobu jediným dlouhým trackem, rozhodně jsem se chtěl vyvarovat žánrových a předvídatelných klišé jako je temné hřmění, masivní hluboké frekvence nebo chladná atmosféra. Moje pojetí zalednění je plné bílé krajiny, oslňující sněhové záře jež podtrhuje rozlehlost ledových oceánů a hluboko zakořeněného ticha.“

Více jak hodinová skladba je plná jak vánek lehoučkých hluků doprovázených delikátními zvuky těreminu. Decentně elektronický výsledek je novější variantou opus magnum Steve Roache Structures From Silence. To znamená zhmotnění statična pozitivně relaxačním směrem. Oophoi atmosférický test zvládl na chvalitebnou.

FREEMUSIC.CZ

Twenty-four Review

E/I MAGAZINE