The Callas and Weird Omen

Press release - 20 May 2019 04:08

Artrocker and Dirty Water Records Presents: THE CALLAS and WEIRD OMEN - Live at The Lexington Saturday 25th, May

Greece's The Callas (Aris – vocals / guitar, Lakis – bass / vocals, Chrisanthy – drums / vocals, Chris – guitar) is a loose artistic collective that creates artworks, music, films, magazines, art shows initiated by the brothers Lakis & Aris Ionas.

They collaborated on songs and aesthetics with Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth) on a new album which was released in late 2018 - “Trouble and Desire” (Dirty Water Records / Inner Ear).
Their previous two albums, "Am I Vertical?” and “Half Kiss, Half Pain" were produced by Jim Sclavunos.

They have performed live in churches, galleries, flats, museums, boats, mountains, toilets and festivals like Liverpool Psyche Festival (Liverpool UK), The Great Escape Festival (Brighton, UK), Indigenes Festival (Nantes, France), Reeperbahn Festival (Hamburg, DE) and with bands/artists such as Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, The Brian Jonestown Massacre, Ty Segall and Grinderman.

Recent press:
“Trouble and Desire” video premiere – BROOKLYN VEGAN
“Disaster! Disaster! Disaster! It happens! So goes The Callas’ riotous chant over the dirgy, life-affirming garage rock stomp that is “Disaster.” – NOISEY
“Oddly Thrilling!” - MOJO (****)
5/5 - Album of the week - ARTROCKER
“It’s Sunday I’m Bleeding” – song of the day / KEXP Radio
“An amazing performance by The Callas that was a cross between punk rock
and Andy Warhol’s Factory scene” - THE INDEPENDENT

Art shows: Documenta 14 (Athens – Kassel), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Family Business gallery / Anna Kustera (New York), DESTE foundation (Athens), Athens Biennial (Athens), Andreas Melas gallery (Athens), Yinka Shonibare Space (London), The Breeder gallery (Athens).

“ The sonic palette of the album is diverse and exploratory, with songs that range in style from dreamy subversive pop to brutal post-punk skronk to deconstructed rebetiko.” – Jim Sclavunos

“I’m a fan of their visual art tapestries and their art studio/venue and I’ve been having a great time making music with these like-minded travelers” – Lee Ranaldo

“It’s a real cool record. There is this special kind of chemistry in the band”
Thurston Moore

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Two LPs and four singles in, WEIRD OMEN still evade direct comparisons to … anyone. Descriptions abound: “Primitive garage, a deluge of trash brass, reverb, and fuzzzzz”, “a crypto-hypnotic garage trance, blending ‘60s tones and psychedelic neo-garage”, and “France’s strangest garage-psych-rock trio - comprised of guitar, sax, and drums. Lost somewhere between the Cramps and The Kinks”. For sound-alikes, you might look to Morphine and James Chance and the Contortions, but all this tells you is that while Weird Omen has influences like everybody else does, their sound is their own.

There’s a helluva pedigree here too: King Khan & the Shrines , Bee Dee Kay & the Roller Coaster, Lost Communists, Limiñanas, We Are Not Indians, Escobar, Anomalys…

Balancing between a gloomy psychedelic atmosphere and fast-paced punk energy, Weird Omen manage to make some new with the old, imposing their own unique style.

Refusing to succumb to one genre only, the band bravely blends garage, exotica, rockabilly, and psych.The lineup is straightforward, if unusual; a storming rhythm section comprised of drummer Remi Pablo and guitarist Sister Ray and what can only be described as a lead baritone saxophonist, Fred Rollercoaster.

Weird Omen defies the current trends of garage; or more exactly, builds upon its foundations to make something completely different out of it. The band have just served up a new 7" ('Girls Are Dancing On The Highway' b/w 'A Place I Want To Know') single to wet the thirsty whistles of the garage-punk intelligentsia; paving the way for a European tour behind their full-length LP, "Surrealistic Feast."

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Topics

Music

Contacts

Matt Hunter

Press contact matt@reprobatemedia.com

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