STELLAGE presents: Callahan & Witscher / Drygianakis / Helmet
Stellage record store organizes a live concert at KET with Callahan & Witscher (USA), Kostis Drygianakis (GR) and Yorgas Helmet (GR).
American musicians Jeff Witscher and Jack Callahan are known for their far-ranging work under various monikers and deep individual histories within noise, computer music, and new music circles. Joining forces to helm new music and contemporary composition label FLEA, the duo has recently produced a series of beguiling and forward-thinking compositions including The Past, Present And Future Of Experimental Music (Uncut GRM), Stockhausen Syndrome, and ISSUES (What Happens on Earth Stays on Earth), as well as video works and curatorial projects. Their collaborative work often experiments with transparent composition systems and the limits of our current music technology, sharing sensibilities with radio art, A.A. meetings, group therapy sessions, formatlist and fluxus generative poetry experiments, and Q&A formats. They probe into the purpose and meaning of experimental music and showcase tensions inherent to the communication of ideas—exploring what music can be in a world where almost everything is reduced to signals and information. Together, their alliance charts a path for truly avant-garde music in the 21st century.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXyjdPQSiAk&ab_channel=ChristopherMiller
Costis Drygianakis was born in Volos, Greece, 1965. He studied Physics and Social Anthropology, got involved with music, loves dogs, collects ceramics, cooks spaghetti. Active as a composer and record producer since 1987. According to an old press release, “the music of Costis Drygianakis, usually assembled with the help of recording media (tapes, computers etc) belongs to the broader genre of electroacoustic music, though generally avoiding dogmatic approaches. Frequently using unorthodox relationships of composition, recording and re-composition, it employs and tames randomness and improvisation, balances in-between ambiance and surprise, makes references but denies identifications and, finally, explores without abandoning its sentimental space.
www.costisdrygianakis.bandcamp.com
Georgios Karamanolakis (aka Yorgas Helmet) is an experimental artist and composer/improviser. He lives in Athens. The Yorgas Helmet project started in 1997 as a solo black metal attempt with distorted guitar riffs and processed vocals. Noise based on a chimera of digital and analog equipment cross-communication, intense distorted vocals and electroacoustic musique concrete techniques. The project is focused on the sense of myth, reconstruction, retrofuturism and the everlasting winter that surrounds us. He leads the Athenian post-apocalyptic synth-punk band ΟΔΟΣ 55 and is a member of the underground urban intervention team Omio. From 2017 to 2022 he has produced the Athens Inner City Broadcast program at London’s Resonance 104.4FM experimental radio station. He has cooperated and composed albums with a wide range of experimental artists such as Japanese noise legend Hiroshi Hasegawa (aka Astro) and musique concrete master Jean-Marc Foussat (their last work being the LP Substunce Sans Scrupule), amongst others. His last work ‘Anthromorph’ is a self released album focusing on the notion of metamorphosis and cyberpunk aesthetics.