36th Vilnius Jazz Festival. 12-16 October, 2022

Milasius Power Band

Lithuania

Juozas Milašius - g

Audrius Kalytis - g

Darius Čiuta - sampler, electronics

The three musicians are united by search for new forms of sound, musical expression and communication. The trio claim to have no logical, routine goals or plans – only to enjoy brief moments of discovery. Anti-communication, anti-improvisation – this is how musicians describe their collaboration.

Juozas Milašius has been ranked among the most ingenious and radical Lithuanian guitarists, jazz musicians, composers and initiators of various performances. For almost three decades the conceptualist and experimenter has investigated possibilities of the guitar in his solo performances and diverse projects involving renowned improvisers, electronic music composers and sound artists.

The guitarist stormed the Lithuanian jazz scene in 1986 taking aback the audiences with avalanches of sound and ideas. He then made his debut with Petras Vyšniauskas Quartet.

By the end of the ‘80s Milašius’ discovered the platform for his artistic experiments in a duo with drummer Dalius Naujokaitis, currently residing and working in the USA. Yet another laboratory for his discoveries was “The Lithuanian Young Composers Orchestra”, which he formed with likeminded colleagues. The aforementioned projects bore a resemblance to performance.

His bent for sound experiments prompted Milašius to form guitar ensembles “Gitarmanija” (1989) and “Auksinės gitaros” (1998); it is showcased in his solo albums j.m.eilė (2002) and Slow (2009), as well as in P (2016), his collaborative album with Darius Čiuta, and other projects, documented in albums Kab_Lys (2015), Sun Sun Up (2016), Upė (2018) and Electric & Acoustic (2019).

The guitarist has composed soundtracks for It Snows in Heaven Too (1994) and Journey into the Night (2003), with colleagues directed a theatre production based on Kōbō Abe’s novel Woman in the Dunes, in which he also acted.

An uncompromising musician Milašius collaborated with Vladimir Chekasin, Vytautas Labutis and Vladimir Tarasov’s ensembles, as well as with Tomas Kutavičius, Skirmantas Sasnauskas, Jonas Mekas, Darius Čiūta and other performers of experimental electronic music.

He has also appeared in international formations with Jim Meneses, Martin Schutz, Hans Koch, Fredy Studer, Sainkho Namchilak, Ned Rothenberg, Lindsay Cooper, Jimmy Owens, Dror Feiler, Luc Houtkamp, Kouhei Matsunaga, Sabir Mateen and Saadet Turkoz among others.

As a part of various ensembles Milašius has performed in a number of jazz and contemporary music and art festivals in Russia, Italy, Poland, Estonia, Germany, Switzerland, Norway and Austria.

In 2008, he earned Vilnius Jazz Award for contributions to Lithuanian jazz.

Audrius Kalytis is best known as a leader of Kaunas-based rock group “SH”. The group was nominated for Radiocentras and Bravo awards, released albums, introduced hits.

Kalytis is admired for his idiosyncratic vocabulary, unorthodox guitar tuning, characteristic chord sequences and spontaneous passages.

For five years the musician has resided in London. Recently, he hardly ever visits Lithuania, thus this project is an important moment in his career.

Sound artist Darius Čiuta is regular participant of contemporary art projects. He collaborates with composers, artists, architects, music improvisers and representatives of other fields. He initiates projects for contemporary music festivals and art galleries.

His creative language encompasses genres of performance and sound installation.

In his early creative phase Čiuta was interested in industrial music soundscape and noise aesthetics. He played in “naj”, which recorded resituation smile for “RRRecords” (USA).

He is currently working on environmental recordings, sound processing them with metaphorical cues, graphic accents, photographic mise-en-scènes and textual cues.

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