Bardo Oöphoi

For a time it seemed as though Hypnos had begun to move away from the dark, cold, and at times clinical drone soundscapes that established them so quickly in the genre. That was until an Oöphoi recording made it onto the Hypnos release list. Oöphoi's first CD with Hypnos is excellent. It's quite reminiscent of some of Hypnos' previous releases, particularly M. Griffin and A Produce's Altara. There are also traces of Sunyata, a re-release of a tape-only release that Robert Rich had put out in the mid-'80s. Oöphoi's Athlit is a dark and foreboding release with melancholy drones that permeate the foreground and sparkling, almost scalpel-like pad sweeps that seemingly bring the recording out of the speakers and into three-dimensionality. This work is both contemplative and imaginative…

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.

Songs from the Bardo begins with a bell ringing out once, twice, three times, as a ritualistic chant emerges from the dense silence. The collaborative composition by avant-garde icon Laurie Anderson, Tibetan multi-instrumentalist Tenzin Choegyal, and composer and activist Jesse Paris Smith is a guided journey through the visionary text of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, unfolding in an 80-minute ebb and flow of sound and words. Songs from the Bardo is a transporting experience, meant to draw the listener into the present moment and provide a framework for inner exploration. Anderson, Choegyal, and Smith fuse modern compositional techniques with the mystique of Tibetan Buddhist philosophy to make these visionary traditions more accessible to a new generation of listeners and to reveal the ancient wisdoms contained within.

What may seem odd on paper makes more sense in sonic terms: the trio of bassist Jonas Hellborg, guitarist Shawn Lane and virtuosic South Indian udu player V. Selvaganesh works up a kind of sensitive fury in the zone where Indo-jazz-rock and cross-cultural ambient concepts meet. John McLaughlin (with whom Hellborg played way back when) has been here before, the mixture of fusion and classical Indian materials. In the case of this group, it comes in the form of harmonic vocabulary from rock, and rhythms that lean towards the suppleness and intricacy from the Carnatic side of things.

After their acclaimed debut CD release "Celestial Geometries", considered as one of the best space albums ever, Italian sound sculptors Oöphoi and Tau Ceti are back with the long awaited second CD "Subterranea", inspired by a book about the myth of Agharti, the hidden realm located in central Asia. Vast sonic explorations with synths, flutes, stones and shells, ranging from subtle and mysterious atmospheres to highly dynamic passages, describe this out of reach underworld. The last part of the long suite "The chamber of eternity" features the unique sounds of the Tibetan singing bowls of Klaus Wiese. After the outer space adventures of their first CD, "Subterranea" deals with the inner space.

Jonas Hellborg launches a new platform for integration of east and west, a project called Art Metal. Borrowing the aesthetic of contemporary metal expanded with Indian and jazz improvisational disciplines, it is a proposal for what a new musical canvas could be. With long time collaborator, South Indian percussion master Selvaganesh, he explores this new path with two legends of the metal scene, Jens Johansson (Yngwie Malmsteen, Dio, Stratovarius) and Anders Johansson (Yngwie Malmsteen and Hammerfall). Completing the ensemble is Swedish guitar phenomenon Mattias IA Eklundh. The music has been slowly brewed over 18 months to find the spaces where the elements of the seemingly disparate musical traditions can comfortably coexist, even gel into new forms of sonic art.