Antanas Kučinskas

2009 release ** "The works of Antanas Kučinskas collected on the album "Parasite" are based on the method of re-composition, i.e. processing material with a strong historical and stylistic identity using techniques that are completely "alien" to him. I am talking in particular about sampling, loops and scratches, which make up the aesthetics that Kučinskas himself called "parasitic music". I am an omnivorous parasite: my works feed on existing music and develop at its expense until the complete destruction of the host," claims Antanas Kučinskas (1968), a graduate and lecturer at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Dance in Vilnius. However, this provocative declaration perfectly illustrates his creative attitude, and especially the secrets of the compositional craft. Kučinskas’s work is characterised by an exceptional diversity of genres, styles and techniques, encompassing modal scales, serial procedures, as well as traditions of conceptual art, minimalism, DJ culture and Fluxus. At the same time, however, he remains unabashedly open and direct, so that the listener has no problem understanding how his pieces were composed and what they are about. Kučinskas does not hide behind complex structures or unnecessary commentary, but presents his simple ideas in a brilliant and elegant way."