HYPO-STASIS

Anastasis Grivas
prepared custom bowing guitar, contact mics, objects manipulation

João Castro Pinto
laptop, live electronics, real-time sampling, Max-Msp

List track:
1. HYPO-STASIS A – INTRO : 07’25 »
2. HYPO-STASIS B : 03’00 »
3. HYPO-STASIS C : 09’15 »
4. HYPO-STASIS D : 07’32 »
5. HYPO-STASIS E : 07’37 »
6. HYPO-STASIS F : 08’27 »
7. HYPO-STASIS G – CODA : 08’09 »
Total time: 00:50:45 min

All music recorded live at Small Music Theatre on May 3rd and 5th 2003, in Athens, Greece. Editing and mastering by © Anastasis Grivas & João Castro Pinto, in 2004 and 2023. Design / visual work by João Castro Pinto.

10 pages | monochrome | 14 cm x 15 cm | 12 €
50 copies hand-numbered limited edition

Impression riso les bras manuels
© Grimaces éditions • 2023

| extraits audio |

| extraits images |

HYPO-STASIS is the musical result of the collaboration, initiated back in 2003, between Anastasis Grivas (prepared custom guitar), a Greek improviser and curator and the Portuguese composer / performer João Castro Pinto (laptop). In May 2003, on the occasion of Castro Pinto’s three months intermedia artistic residency at Fournos Centre for Digital Culture, in Athens, both musicians met for two improvised recording sessions at Small Music Theater, at the time Greece’s most important venue dedicated to experimental and improvised music, curated by Anastasis (Ektopia). With closed doors and no audience, Anastasis and João played on SMT’s stage and improvised direct takes (stereo files), which were registered via an audio CD recorder. The outcome of the recorded music is condensed on this album in 7 pieces. Both artists were very satisfied with this live collaboration and immediately had the intention to release it. Due to several contingencies, the recordings stood on hold for two decades, when finally both musicians managed to do a selection and simple editing / mastering of the pieces, in order to release them to the world, for they still carry pertinent musical actuality. This release marks the 20th anniversary of the recordings & of the debut of this collaborative duo.
HYPO-STASIS presents several musical approaches, from the initial quiet & dark minimal dronescapes, where the continuous hypnotic sounds of the prepared guitar turn into dense atmospheres, due to João’s live electroacoustic subtle processing; to the more hectic final tracks, where Anastasis’s custom made prepared guitar gains foreground protagonism, presenting, alongside the deep thick drones, discrete sounds and whimsical musical gestures, in an overall improv methodology that turns this album into a diverse musical voyage, composed by an intriguing sonic palette.
HYPO-STASIS relates musically to the idea of Greek’s philosophical term hypostasis, the essential substrate upon which all reality is constructed, the foundation of phenomenic appearances. It also concerns the approach of the early Christian vision patent on the idea Hypostatic union, it is therefore a title that describes the idea of unity in diversity, movement in staticity and an overall consequent intrinsic musical flow.

Special thanks to Paille & Pierre Veyser, Rogério António Pinto, Maria João Maia de Sampaio e Castro Pinto, Sofia A. Carvalho, Joana Serrão & Christian Tutt.

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