arma

Arma (full name Armantas, b. 1982) is the sound-performance artist and curator from Vilnius, Lithuania, active since 1998. Arma has organized a few hundred events for avantgarde / experimental / underground music and performance art, including festivals "Speigas", "SOTU Lithuania", "Vilnius noise week", "Diverse universe", "Homo ludens" and many smaller concerts and sound art workshops. Released more than 30 records under labels Perineum (rip), Red Brick Chimney (rip) Agharta, also published paper zines "Introspect" and "Infected by Dementia".

As a sound artist, since 2007 Arma has been performing and releasing music under different names. Currently his stage name is 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.

Toured in USA, Canada, Russia, Germany, Austria, Ukraine, UK, Hungary, Norway, Serbia, Slovakia, Czech republic, Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. 

Has been performing in the festivals: Sonic Circuits (DC, Usa), Cocart (Poland), Experimental (NY, Usa), Sonic (Denmark), SOTU (Netherlands), Sound Around (Russia), Porin Juhlaviikot (Finland), Speigas, Mėnuo Juodaragis, Sūpynės, Strcamp, Centras, Dezintegracija (all in Lithuania). 

Currently Arma collaborates with well known Lithuanian sound artist Arturas Bumsteinas aka Refusenik and piano player Gaile Griciute. Previously he worked with Ramunas Jaras, Stefano Ferrian and Simone Quatrana (Italy), the band Laisva Struktura.

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