Id|entities
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Stephen Fruitman / Avant Music News
"A summoned demon is yours to command" and it in turn has summoned legions, both inner and social. Id | entities is the audio collage version of a midnight movie, a cross between lurid horror and an old gumshoe serial like The Shadow (who knew what evil lurked in the hearts of men). It´s really scary, especially the female voices narrating intent for their helpless victims. Bodies, objectified and (de)sexualized, torture of both a physical and psychological nature, whispered threats, palpable fear – the flesh as medium.
Who is Ovro and why is she so giallo? Ovro is "Herself" according to the liner notes, an "experimental musician from Finland who began making minimal and dark ambient soundscapes in 2003," and who has been working on Id | entities for the past four years. All sampling ("from good movies, from bad movies, famous movies, obscure movies", field recording, instruments and vocals (aside from some male recitation, synthesizer and horns) were "composed, revised, turned, twisted, multiplied and subtracted" by Herself. She slices and grafts sampled scores onto her own music (including some previously unused work) with the deftness of a surgeon rather than a chainsaw wielding maniac, and does so with a great feel for drama, creating an industrial noir that builds tension again and again. By slicing the plural of the title, she is also turning words into objects, harmed ones, "I.D.s" determined by examining “entities”, the sum of the parts that have been severed and scattered. Alternatively, as isolated ids, we are nothing but living, breathing Freudian instinct, aggression and appetite. On "Know Thyself," a desperate man mumbles, "I know who I am," trying to convince himself as the last shred of hope slips away.
The way Ovro sews the pieces back together, while Frankensteinian, is impressive. She enters Rashomon territory by asking whether the stories being told are those of one storyteller or an entire host, and if they are telling the same story or many.
Unfortunately, it would seem the label Some Place Else is in the process of shutting down all new production. But it still has this gruesome gem, wrapped in a huge, pretty disturbing fold-out poster, in stock.
Jan Kees HelmsVital Weekly 900
OVRO – ID | ENTITIES (CD and artwork by Some Place Else)
Some Place Else is a Finnish label and run by Niko Skorpio. The label focusses on experimental electronic music. The standard of their releases has a high quality and the label works only with a selected group of musicians. One of these musicians in Ovro. Since 2003 she makes surrealistic music in which dark electronics and soundscapes will lead to sinister landscapes. Id|entities is her seventh album and has been released after five years of silence. Although… silence?? She has been working on this album since 2008. For this album she recorded a lot of samples from movies which have been broadcasted on TV or have been played on a DVD player. The collection of sounds comes from a bunch of movies and she did not restricted herself to a special genre or quality. All these voices from all these movie-realities has been inserted into 15 compositions which float into each other. The album is like a soundtrack of a creepy movie with some mythical scenes. The dark atmosphere is guided by beautiful chosen rhythms which gives an hypnotic mood. Some tracks does remind me to Zos Kia and Coil, but than in a modern way. The artwork of the CD is sinister as well. Id|entities is a beautiful movie with a visual score. Ovro is able to create images without a camera or brush. (JKH)
Jiituomas, Kuolleen Musiikin Yhdistys:
Identities probably describes various sides of Ovro. The songs on it were made between 2008 and 2013, but run just fine together as a whole. The embodied sound that is the artist’s trademark is very much present, as is a fine sense of space where sounds come from differing directions. Identities is the best Ovro album since the extremely rare The Serpent Rite (2004) - restrained, subtle and cleverly playing with the artist’s strengths. At some moments the repetitiveness of the samples is a bit annoying (e.g. on Interrogation), but not too much. On one hand, it demands close attention to get noticed the way it deserves, on the other, it seems to intentionally drive away that attention.Its best moments are on Trust, at the beginning, and the rhythm-dominated Underdog, but there’s plenty of goodies available throughout.
Identities is a fine piece of body-sound fortified ambient, one that shows the obvious touch of its creator. I hpe also Ten will become more available soon, because I otherwise have to pity those who did not pre-order the package. It’s an essential release, both discs.
eskaton, Chain D.L.K.
Ovro is a Finnish musician who has also collaborated with Niko Skorpio under the name Hæretici 7o74. The press release describes this as 'a bunch of stories told by different personalities. Whether the stories told are true, or just true to the one(s) telling them is left to the listener to decide.' And Ovro knows how to tell a story. If the mini poster that comes with the disc is any indication, this won't be the kind of story that has a happy ending, either. We begin with some minimal music of drums, bells, and drone and spoken word samples like 'he who summons the magic controls the magic.' This gives us an idea of what we're in for. The use of samples on this album is a lot more pronounced than usual in this kind of music, but this is by design. As she put it, 'It all began with a sudden urge to start collecting samples: 'Go forth and sample!'. Not only my usual field recordings, but samples from movies. Some were recorded straight from TV when the movie was on, some were nicked from movies in our DVD collection. There are bits from good movies, from bad movies, famous movies, obscure movies and everything in between ' but all more or less from the horror et al genre (I wonder how that happened, heh).' At times the samples become a bit heavy handed though. For example, 'Fate Dealer' repeats 'You're my hate disposal unity.' Still, overall this is good ritualistic ambiance with interesting use of samples throughout to build atmosphere. If you like your dark ambient extra dark, this is one to check out. This album weighs in at around 64 minutes and is limited to 250 copies.
Hypnagogue
Id|entities is one of those dark experimental works I have to admit I can’t get into and don’t really get. This Finnish artist started off collecting a lot of samples from various media, mostly films and television, then “recontextualized [them] to form new dialogues.” And it must be said she certainly didn’t go light on them. If you love soundbites, you’ll love this release. It’s thick with them. Too thick for me. In fact, Ovro almost lost me on the first track with endless repetitions of a single phrase from one source. The disc boils down to the repurposed audio forming a sort of disjointed narrative that gets a little bit of atmospheric treatment. It’s like listening to a slightly schizophrenic radio play. For me, it’s a bit ponderous and doesn’t do anything to hold my attention. Fans of dark ambient or plunderphonics might get more out of it.
Jan Kees Helms, Ravage Webzine
Some Place Else is een Fins label dat sinds 1997 wordt gerund door de muzikant Niko Skorpio. Het label richt zich op experimentele elektronische muziek, gemaakt door een selectieve groep muzikanten die regelmatig werk uitbrengt, zoals Igor Bardo en APROX. De uitgaven van Some Place Else zijn van hoge kwaliteit. Het gaat hierbij niet om de verkoopbaarheid, maar om de luisteraar te verrassen met hoogstaande avontuurlijke muziek.
Een van de laatste uitgaven is van de muzikante Ovro. Zij maakt sinds 2003 elektronische muziek die zich het beste laat omschrijven als Dark Ambient. Daarnaast speelt zij in het duo Hæretici 7o74 samen het Niko Skorpio. Id|entities is haar zevende album na vijf jaar stilte. Hoewel stilte… al die tijd heeft zij gewerkt aan dit album. Voorheen werkte zij vooral met field-recordings, maar voor dit album heeft zij talloze samples opgenomen van films. Zij heeft zich hierbij niet beperkt tot een bepaald genre of kwaliteit, maar geput uit zowel goed als slecht materiaal, kaskrakers en obscure films.
Id|entities laat zich het beste omschrijven als een film zonder beeld. De 15 composities lopen naadloos in elkaar over, ieder nummer is als een kamer of ruimte waarin een sinistere of mythische sfeer hangt. De mix van elektronische geluiden, de gesampelde stemmen en trage ritmes zorgen voor onheilspellende soundtracks, die het ene moment meer in zichzelf gericht is en het andere moment eerder extravert door het gebruik van samples van dominante stemmen.
De muziek doet mij herinneren aan de soundscapes van Zos Kia en het oudere werk van Coil, maar dan op een moderne manier uitgevoerd. Some Place Else heeft mij inderdaad weten te verrassen met een prachtige plaat waarop Ovro aantoont beelden te creëren zonder hiervoor gebruik te maken van camera, kwast, spuitbus of wat dan ook.