About ARP

Alexis Georgopoulos is a San Francisco-based artist, writer and musician, though he hesitates to use such terms, especially the latter. As a member of rhythmic experimentalists Tussle and OutFolk collective The Alps, Alexis Georgopoulos has toured the world and released critically acclaimed work. He's performed in gallery spaces such as DEITCH PROJECTS (Manhattan & Brooklyn), MoMA (San Francisco), JACK HANLEY GALLERY (SF), LUGGAGE STORY GALLERY (SF), ADOBE BOOKSHOP (SF) and the FRIEZE ART FAIR (London). He's composed music for sound installations; curated art programs which have included artists such as SIMON EVANS, JO JACKSON and CHRIS JOHANSON; written on Visual Art, Design and Music for international Arts & Culture publications such as i-D, Tokion, The Blow Up and Vice, Sleazenation, San Francisco Guardian and Anthem; taken part in various avant-garde workshops; and had numerous deejay residencies. This site is devoted to his most recent project: ARP. An attempt to return electronic music to a less-sterile time, Alexis spent a few weeks in Spring 2006 improvising with analog synthesizers, pulse machines, flute, strings, pedals and an old 4track cassette recorder. Nearly all the music was recorded live. Very few loops were used - in fact, only one. This gesture was meant to bring back some of the rough (re: natural) edges Alexis feels have been lost in so much "Electronic Music" today. Instead, he's gone back to the days when groups/artists like CLUSTER, KRAFTWERK (circa "Ralf & Florian"), DAVID BOWIE & ENO (circa LOW), ASHRA, CAN, FRANCO BATTIATO, TERRY RILEY, JOHN CALE, and TANGERINE DREAM played live, leaving mistakes and the natural flow of things on display. If there is something "vintage" about ARP, it is this decision to get to know synthesizers from the ground up, playing the machines as live intstruments. The result is not "clinical" - quite the opposite: it is often pastoral and imagistic, imbued with a Romanticism for a future that will never come to pass, glowing in white and orange and blue light, like an evening sunrise on the French Riviera. The ARP debut (2/3rds of which can be heard here) will be released by Norwegian imprint SMALLTOWN SUPERSOUND (LINDSTROM, KIM HIORTHOY, JIM O'ROURKE, THURSTON MOORE) in early 2007. The cover will feature the Artwork & Typography of TAUBA AUERBACH, represented by DEITCH PROJECTS. These pieces were originally presented as a sound installation in collaboration with Architect Kyu Che as part of a show curated by ARTFORUM and FRIEZE contributor MATTHEW HIGGS. Photographs of the installation can be seen in the picture section here. Alexis is reachable at: Arp001@gmail.com