Biography

Oöphoi was the pseudonym of Gianluigi Gasparetti. Born in Rome, Italy, March 26, 1958. He started his own music experiments in 1995 with a basic instrumentation, trying to explore the shores of deep space-ambient music. His first album "Three Lights at the End of the World", composed in 1995, has been released in 1996 by Italian ambient artist Alio Die on his own label, Hic Sunt Leones (Alio Die himself played for one minute in a track of this album). His classic double live album entitled "The Spirals of Time", released in 1997 on Amplexus, has been voted as one of the best ambient albums of all time.

Oöphoi used mainly synths and sampling machines, singing bowls, flutes, Theremin, waterphone, processed voices and unusual percussion (woodchimes, stones, shells, crystal chimes); all his music was recorded using analog-only devices in The Kiva, his studio, which used to be a stable in a XV Century stone country house in the hills of central Italy.


In 2002 he founded the experimental ambient group Nebula, along with Klaus Wiese, Mauro Malgrande, Lorenzo Pierobon and Tau Ceti. He has released 20+ CDs for many international labels (Hic Sunt Leones, Amplexus, Hypnos, Nextera, Electroshock Records, Skean Dhu, Stella Maris, Aplaus, Mystery Sea), and he ran his own label Umbra, devoted to the music of new Italian ambient artists.

His latest works included several collaborations with artists like Paul Vnuk Jr (Dreamfields, Nextera 2011), Seren Ffordd (The Martian Chronicles, Hypnos 2011), Ran Kirlian (The Physics Of Heaven, Altera Orbe 2013) and with italian guitarist Enrico Coniglio under the pseudonym of Aqua Dorsa (Cloudlands, Glaciar Movements, 2009). His most recent solo releases were Il Silenzio Di Dio (Databloem, 2011), I Hear The Wind Singing and I Hear The Woods Whispering, both released on Practising Nature, a division of Databloem in 2013.

 

Gianluigi Gasparetti passed away in 2013 after a long illness at age 55.