Art Against Agony is an artist collective that started first as an instrumental progressive metal/jazz band in 2012 in Stuttgart, Germany. Besides its experimental musical endeavours, the project has since focused also on photographic and videographic art as well as performance art, such as taking part in experimental art exhibitions (2013 Tübingen, Germany), producing its ‚random-art‘ video series on Youtube or its ‚ars-gratia-artis‘ photo series online.
All members of the project wear masks to cover their faces, because the philosophy of Art Against Agony considers every focus on bodily features as insignificant regarding to the creation of art within the project. Therefore, all members use pseudonyms to cover their names, masks to cover their faces, and costumes to cover their bodies.
In 2014 the band Art Against Agony released its debut album ‘three short stories’, which was commented by the German press as ‘a journey from a metal concert to an absinth jazz-bar’ and was categorized as ‘prog-jazz-experimental-brainfuck-metal’.
In 2016 the band released its second album ‘the difference between a duck and a lobster’ and toured Europe and Russia for the first time over a course of half a year.
In early 2017, the band released their EP “the forgotten story”, which showcases five songs from their first album which have transformed into an entirely new shape over the last years of live performance. The EP has been extensively hailed by the press and the band has been called ‘the messiah of the prog-genre‘.
In late 2017, the band has released a second EP called ‚Russian Tales‘, followed thereafter by a tour through Russia and Brazil and a musicvideo for ‚Coffee for the Queen‘ on YouTube.
In 2018, the project has released their third studio LP ‚Shiva Appreciation Society‘ and a musicvideo for ‚Nandi‘ on Youtube with their new member the_maximalist, and Indian mridangam percussion player, followed by an European Tour in the end of 2018. In 2019 the band supported British progressive metal band HAKEN on their European summer tour.
Summer 2020, amidst the pandemic, the band went on a musical adventure venturing into electronic dance music, releasing their third EP ‚Solanaceae‘.
For summer 2021, the band has announced their fourth EP called ‚Reincarnation Suite‘, whilst the beginning of 2022 did not only see the beginning of a new war on the European continent, but furthermore some more electronic music called ‘ДЖАЗ УМЕР‘, which eerily & forebodingly translates to ‘Jazz Died’.
Adding drummer the_linq to the collective, the end of 2023 saw the release of our fourth studio LP called ‘Sound of Inevitability‘, featuring Aralee Dorough on flute (Houston Symphonic).
