The new Ovro album consists of two distinct parts, each independent yet linked to each other. Ovro started working on Mosaick the Serpent already in late 2003. In the early stage it was to become an independent EP, but the appearance of Gegendurchgangenzeit (2005) delayed its release. Meanwhile, a companion EP started to take form, namely Vipera Aurea. These two EPs, Mosaick and Vipera, are
twins – independent yet entwined like the snakes of a caduceus. They support and compliment each other and form a new whole, a third being that contains both its makers and in itself is something more. Vipera Aurea is coagula to Mosaick the Serpent‘s solve.
Some of this material has been performed on Ovro’s live performances in 2005/06. Those lucky to have witnessed any of these will know the album is calm yet intense, vocal-flavoured Dark Ambient mindscapes in the highly regarded Ovrian style.
Mosaick the Serpent / Vipera Aurea features contributions from Massimo of Black Sun Productions, Niko Skorpio and Mockingwyrd (Kaaos in Eccentris etc).
Mosaick the Serpent / Vipera Aurea CD comes with two gorgeous 12-panel foldout sleeves, full of lyrics, liner notes, photos and artwork all created by Ovro herself.
SPECD06038. CD with two 12-panel foldout booklets, edition of 500 copies.
Reviews
“Whoever thought that women only make sweet and non-challenging music should think again. Ovro takes you into the depth of emotional disaster and makes it sound like the soundtrack of a bleak hell. The experience becomes truly haunting once the vocals set in, at times startling, at other times utterly ghostly and exceptionally frightening plus much more familiar sounding samples. The track fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces or like a mosaic fragmented into not so easy to swallow sub tracks.(…) If there was such thing as measured and ambient detonations you would find that Ovro created it and the collection does not need the aid of undressed female curves to stand out! If you like dark ambient, if you look for music that will scare you and make you want to curl up into a ball in the corner, if you sit on your own and in the dark then buy it.. Yes please!” (Judas Kiss)
“Ovro goes her way, straight on behalf for her (difficult) road. The new publication of the Finnish artist sees collected two EP: “Mosaic The Serpent”, begun more than three years ago, is a true jump in the dark absolute of the tundra Arctic, between echoes of spectral voices and crepitii of vlves; “Vipera Aurea” is the cities’ balance, where city is the post-manufacturer assumes all those connotes annihilating described in the works of the Throbbing Gristle of thirty years ago.” (Losing Today)
“The music of this Finnish outfit could be filed under ambient or minimal, since what we hear are mostly distant, low-keyed noises and sounds, blend together to create dark and disturbing sceneries. It could be the soundtrack to some modern Asian horror film, or field recordings done inside a strange infernal dimension. While “Mosaick The Serpent” would need you to turn up the volume or get your headphones to drown into the dense substrata of sounds and grasp the atmospheres Ovro tries to evoke, “Vipera Aurea” is a bit more human (or, should we say, inhuman) with various disturbing children and adult voices whispering, murmuring and singsonging, like in the frightening moments of “Scarlet Calls” and “Vorpal Angel”. The music itself shows increased heaviness and aggression. On the whole, this CD features some interesting dark atmospheres and ghostly effects, especially in the second part, while the rest is a bit too creepy and interlocutory to be appreciated outside the circle of experimental and dark ambient die-hard fans. It is to the latter that “Mosaick The Serpent / Vipera Aurea” will undoubtedly appeal.” (Filth Forge)
”Ovro is a Female artist, doing experimental, psychological and cryptic ambient electronica. That alone is a rarity, as only a handful of female artists can say the same. […] Enough to give anyone food for thought, and Ovro does exactly that. Not content with just releasing original and inspiring music, she pours her heart into her packages, surrounding all of her songs with her own creations of artwork, liner notes, and lyrical anomalies. This is a twinned double album, with the theme of Serpents not only echoing the disc titles, but dominating the entire package. One of the pieces of artwork has a similarity to the six Chakras, and the Kundalini, which as most of you know is depicted as a Coiled Serpent. Lets go to the first half of the release, Mosaick the Serpent. Elongated and Inspired song titles such as Primogenitural Echoes and Differentiation Irrevocable do little to take the veil of mystery away, and when one opens the liner notes to find litanies such as “White Dog, Blackened South, Millions dead to reason. Burning but not sign from God, Thinking the new Treason”, it becomes crystal clear that we are not to expect anything even close to conventional. Ovro prides herself on originality, and the album delivers that. The first track offers us brooding ambience, with the kind of eerie whistles you only hear from wind sweeping through tin tunnels. A very bizarre and horrific sound hits us at the end before the now obligatory sample of some speech recording or another. Ovro is not afraid to use vocals either, and it is so pleasing to hear Female vocals in this kind of music. Special mention to Equation Impossible for a new lesson in bleak. After the first six tracks (and the respective end of Mosaick the Serpent), we are offered four nameless, 3 second long “interludes”, which I won’t comment on. How does Vipera Aurea expect to possibly compare to such a length of madness? The quote from Lewis Carroll’s legendary “Jabberwocky” answers that. Vorpal Angel – best song title ever. But let’s go to Scarlet Calls first. Intimidating, female dominance at its strongest. A Male voice singing, very slowly (almost choral like) “Relax Baby, it will only hurt a little” over, and over again. Not one to play at a family gathering then. Pure electronic chaos, and almost noise, in the sense of there being just a montage of sound and samples. So back to Vorpal Angel. THIS is what I call electronic! Incredible sounds! This review as it stands, only describing a handful of the sixteen tracks, tells you all you need to know. I assume you’re on the site already ordering this. If you’re not, I suggest you do so. The label site is above. Ovro, I love you. I am on your myspace page, come say hi sometime! Freaks, BUY this. Fans of dance-worthy, regulated electronic, stay away.“ (Heathen Harvest)
Ovro started her career as one of the few female exponents of the microsound/glitch music, but throughout the few years being active inside experimental music, she developed her personal style. Sampling plays an important role, and the main instrument to sample is her voice. This she feeds through endless amount of sound effects and comes with a rather dark, atmospheric sound that is less ambient than before, certainly on Vipera Aurea where it reaches almost industrial like peaks. Fans of Coil should be definitely drawn into this. (Vital Weekly)
Ovro is a beautiful young lady that has put spherical soundscapes on Mosaick the Serpent as well as on Vipera Aurea. A lot of dark humming and grunting with funny and disturbing voice samples and some high painful noises, all put together in songs that almost all last less than five minutes. Honestly, I don’t hear very much difference between the six song of Mosaick and the tracks 11 till 16, which represent the Vipera-part. The only thing I could come up with is that the tracks of Vipera are somewhat more hectic and noisy. The first part is mainly build up by low and monotone base sounds and some disturbing texts and voices (listen for example to Equation Impossible, Differentiation Irrevocable and Statement of Inexistance). The last six tracks have more different musical layers and also more noise sounds. (Gothtronic)