#arma agharta

[magouka]

Arma Agharta . Festival Sonic Protest. CENTRE BARBARA FGO.

[catsynth-express]

Arma Agharta and Song & Dance Trio, Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco

Today we look back at the recent show featuring Song & Dance Trio and Lithuanian sound-and-performance artist Arma Agharta at the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco. It was the subject of a recent episode of CatSynth TV.

I have seen the members of Song & Dance Trio, Karl Evangelista (guitar), Jordan Glenn (drums) and Cory Wright (baritone saxophone) many times before in many musical contexts, but this was the first time I saw them as a trio. As one can hear in the video, they mixed complex virtuosic avant-garde performance with familiar jazz idioms. And they made it work. There was a strong rhythmic sense throughout the set, with the musicians moving freely between a relaxed shuffle and frenetic staccato runs. The familiar jazz figures sprinkled throughout were fun, but the more experimental interludes were a palette cleanser that made the grooves stand out more strongly.

[Song & Dance Trio (Evangelista, Glenn, Wright)]

Next up was a solo performance by Arma Agharta, a Lithuanian sound-performance-artist who was kicking off the west-coast swing of his United States tour. I didn’t know quite what to expect, even after looking at his interesting setup with a mixture of sound-making objects and electronic instruments.

[Arma Agharta’s colorful electro-acoustic rig]

And then he took the stage wearing a large pointed had and colorful robe. Things started quietly but very quickly turned to a loud, frenzy of sound, movement, and vocals.

[Calm and anything-but-calm moments with Arma Agharta]

This was one of the most physically and sonically intense solo performances I have seen in a while, and the energy was nonstop for most of the duration, with just a few ebbs and pauses. An endurance test for performer and audience alike. I haven’t heard anything quite like it, and it is hard to do justice either in written or video form. The intense sounds were from many layers of electronics, including recorded sounds played at high volume along with Arma Agharta’s own powerful voice howling, bellowing, and other vocalizations.

It was interesting to see such different performances in the same show and to assemble them into a single 3-minute video. But it worked both live and recorded. We wish Arma Agharta well on his next tour (last we saw he was in Turkey) and hope to hear more from him. We, of course, will continue to follow Evangelista, Glenn, and Wright on their musical adventures here in the Bay Area.

Arma Agharta and Song & Dance Trio, Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco was originally published on CatSynth

[dzestra]

NI | Arma Agharta | 13.06.2016

13 червня о 18:00 Галерея SweetART (вул. Штейнбарга, 23) Квитки(на вході): перші десять 50 грн. NI (free jazz – noise, Austria) www.niversum.wordpress.com soundcloud.com/niversum Arma Agharta (experimental – electronics – noise – perfromance art, Lithuania) www.arma.lt soundcloud.com/arma_agharta 

Poster: Zhan Pobe NI Three guitarists, one drummer, and nothing to fret about: NI are out there to save the universe, their exorbitant rock drone doing the hula hoop with templates, their outre-space free jazz swarming with noise-shaped JS Bach on natural steroids. Everything’s there, and everything’s there is shit hot.

Boasting members of such risky ventures as Tumido, Fang den Berg and Braaz, NI released their debut album in 2010 on Zach Records. As a direct consequence the quartet toured half the Continent, leaving it in a state of unadulterated exultation. May and June 2012 saw NI on another outing, regaling Central, Northern and Eastern Europe with their next offering: the follow-up, “Foxtrott”, was released on Interstellar Records as a very pink vinyl LP in a very green sleeve. The LP’s design smartly reflects the style and colour update of their stage kit: gone is the surreal astro-chic of yesteryear, their screamingly dazzling costumes now ushering in a neo(n) era of all senses transmogrified. And still the music is free from inhibitions yet complex; still it is as delightfully delicate as a damsel in distress, yet as brawny as a Bavarian barmaid. A second helping of brains washed down with Zweigelt, insanity on the highest of all possible levels. Arma Agharta The sound performances of Arma Agharta span a broad territory between unbridled eruptions of chaotic noise and hypnotic psychedelic rituals. Although his live sound, created by analogue instruments, formally fits into the familiar shelves of lo-fi, drone, ritual noise etc., in reality it contains many more shamanic elements that are hard to describe yet are perceived instinctively and gutturally. The performer himself, jumping frantically among his ritual props and dressed in ever different exotic outfits, with his face hidden behind some creepy mask of a non-existent tribe, a Neanderthal wig or some other stunning accessory, also looks like a guide to the netherworld of forgotten spirits. Yet all of this is not as gravely serious as it might appear: another prominent element of Arma’s performances is absurd humour, which plunges the listener into an infantile subconscious space through odd bodily movements, spontaneous improvised games and the voice, detached from meaning and turning into unintelligible glossolalia.

Arma is also one of the most widely travelling Lithuanian sound artists. This mobility brings about both new influences, which become evident after each intense tour, and openness to all kinds of collaborations with other underground artists.

Since 2007, under different conceptual solo projects he did over 150 shows in Canada, USA, Russia, Ukraine, Germany, UK, Norway, Austria, Netherlands, Poland, Finland, Serbia, Slovakia, Hungary, Czech republic and Baltic states.

Participated in the festivals: Sonic Circuits (USA), Cocart (Poland), Experi-mental (USA), Sound Around (Russia), Sonic (Denmark), SOTU (Netherlands), Porin Juhlaviikot (Finland), and in all the main Lithuanian festivals: Speigas, Supynes, Menuo Juodaragis, STRcamp, Centras, Dezintegracija, Creature.

His music has been released exclusively on cassettes on Russian and Lithuanian labels. Currently Arma also collaborates with a well known Lithuanian sound artist Arturas Bumsteinas aka Refusenik. FB event VK event

Photo: Vova Gutsul

[trash-in-cow-ka]

[dzestra]

Arma Agharta | Light Dreams | 28-29.04.2015

28.04 IVANO-FRANKIVSK Free Cafe Stantsiya (Nezalezhnosti st, 4) Tickets: 30/40 uah. FB event VK event

29.04 CHERNIVTSI Paul Celan Literaturzentrum (Kobylyanska st, 51) Tickets: 30/40 uah. FB event VK event

Arma Agharta Soundcloud Light Dreams Soundcloud

Arma Agharta (voice – electronics – objects – perfromance art, Vilnius, Lithuania)

The sound performances of Arma Agharta span a broad territory between unbridled eruptions of   chaotic noise and hypnotic psychedelic rituals. Although his live sound, created by analogue   instruments, formally fits into the familiar shelves of lo-fi, drone, ritual noise etc., in reality it   contains many more shamanic elements that are hard to describe yet are perceived instinctively and   gutturally. The performer himself, jumping frantically among his ritual props and dressed in ever   different exotic outfits, with his face hidden behind some creepy mask of a non-existent tribe, a   Neanderthal wig or some other stunning accessory, also looks like a guide to the netherworld of   forgotten spirits. Yet all of this is not as gravely serious as it might appear: another prominent   element of Arma’s performances is absurd humour, which plunges the listener into an infantile   subconscious space through odd bodily movements, spontaneous improvised games and the voice,   detached from meaning and turning into unintelligible glossolalia.

Arma is also one of the most widely travelling Lithuanian sound artists. This mobility brings about   both new influences, which become evident after each intense tour, and openness to all kinds of   collaborations with other underground artists.

Since 2007, under different conceptual solo projects he did over 150 shows in Canada, USA,   Russia, Ukraine, Germany, UK, Norway, Austria, Netherlands, Poland, Finland, Serbia, Slovakia,   Hungary, Czech republic and Baltic states.

Participated in the festivals: Sonic Circuits (USA), Cocart (Poland), Experi-mental (USA), Sound   Around (Russia), Sonic (Denmark), SOTU (Netherlands), Porin Juhlaviikot (Finland), and in all the   main Lithuanian festivals: Speigas, Supynes, Menuo Juodaragis, STRcamp, Centras,   Dezintegracija, Creature.

His music has been released exclusively on cassettes on Russian and Lithuanian labels.   Currently Arma also collaborates with a well known Lithuanian sound artist Arturas Bumsteinas   aka Refusenik.

www.arma.lt www.agharta.lt Light Dreams (electronica – downtempo – IDM – ambient, Kyiv, Ukraine)

facebook.com/lightdreams

Ivano-Frankivsk

Photo and video: Event Room Chernivtsi

Photo: Vova Gutsul

[jgthirlwell]

12/18/14 Lithuanian performer / sound artist Arma Agharta  performed at the monthly eXperimental Electronics evening at The Castle on Commercial Road in London. Tasos Tafarel brought an intense set of noisy looping with manipulated turntables. The night closed with Raxil4 's oscillators droning behind a topless woman stage center. Also on the bill before I arrived were were Thibault Autheman and Nicola Woodham.