Ignoto is the tenth album by OvO, legendary Italian duo formed by Stefania Pedretti (?Alos, Allun) and Bruno Dorella (Ronin, Bachi da Pietra, Tiresia , GDG Modern Trio, Sigillum S). The album is out today September 23rd, 2022 on CD, vinyl and digital via Canadian label Artoffact Records.
Following Miasma – dating back to February 2020 – and the chaos afterwards, OvO felt the need of an album that would be different from the others, that would have new elements, some of which might be refined in the future, but also the need to continue the discourse that began with Miasma. In fact, if on one hand the band continues to evolve as it has always done over its career of more than twenty years, on the other hand the Miasma Tour was greatly compromised by the fact that the album came out right after the start of the pandemic leaving the band with the desire to continue performing those songs during the next tour.
Ignoto contains two tracks both lasting over twenty minutes. In this sense the album could be described as doom or sludge but with OvO nothing is ever that simple. The electronic elements that have been present over recent years are still there and play important roles in both pieces.
Above all, however, the lyrics are composed of complete sentences in Italian, a thing which rarely happened in the past. Stefania Pedretti took her inspiration from science fiction and horror classics (Octavia E. Butler, Mary Shelley, Bram Stoker, H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Philip K. Dick, Ray Bradbury, Clive Barker, Ambrose Bierce…) bringing out the more esoteric side.
The musical language dilates (and for this reason this album will most likely remain unique in OvO’s discography) whereas the lyrical side is enriched with explicit meaning compared to the past where the lyrics where left up to interpretation. Ignoto means “unknown” in italian. It refers to what happened in the last two years in the world and to the band members personally. Especially Pedretti experienced some major health issues that changed her perspective on many things. But most of all it refers to what expects all of us next.
First track La Morte Muore (Death Dies) has four movements, the first being an electronic piece introducing the whole lyrics. Those lyrics come and go in the following parts, the second being a long, hypnotic sludge/doom trip, the album’s manifesto, while the third turns the whole thing into something between a march and a bolero, to enhance Stefania’s lyrics. The final part brings everything back to chaos.
Second track Distillati Di Tenebre (Darkness Distillates) has also four movements, the first being a sort of black metal or crust assault, a kick in the face in OvO’s punk style, while the second brings in the proper lyrics in Italian, a visionary nightmare in form of a sludge/doom cavalcade. The synthesizers of the third and fourth parts are a slow, definitive ride into the unknown, a disintegration into the Big Nothing.
Distillati Di Tenebre (Part 1) and La Morte Muore (Part 3) mark also the beginning of the collaboration between OvO and video artist Sara Dresti. “These are very dark tracks from a very dark album, and Sara has a very dark sight. She works at night, and somehow you can feel it. Sara will turn the whole album into a video project. So this is not only a commission, but a real artistic collaboration, where music and video are in a tight dialogue. The city. People. Animals. Night. An unsafe feeling. Everything seen through eyes that are not human“.
OvO went through over two decades of noisy music, with a strength that’s not easy to explain, but becomes very clear when seen live. There is poetry behind their savagery. There is love behind their nihilism.
