“Unless I read them wrong (and I may; the music itself is the opposite of describing it: it’s wet, and bloody, and it smells like fresh earth and red cinders, and it’s a good goddamn time, is what it is) Old Time Relijun’s theory is that ‘the underground’ (I know. I know. I know.) isn’t an identity that reinvents itself once or twice per generation, but a permanent place within a culture – maybe within all cultures – where styles don’t go in and out of fashion but are always floating around in the air just above our heads.” -- John Darnielle, Last Plane To Jakarta“The music kicks ass: brutal, fluid, funky, spasmodic, violent, sexual…I wish there were more visionaries like Dionyso around.” -- Everett True, Village Voice
The Pacific Northwest’s beloved, esoteric uprooters of rock’s antecedents, Old Time Relijun has already received an impressive outpouring of premature critical praise months in advance of its K Records meisterwerk Catharsis In Crisis. Legendary music scribe Everett True -- he who put Sub Pop and myriad others on the map with his writing in NME and Melody Maker, as well as current author and Plan B editor -- rated Catharsis In Crisis #1 in his “Top 5 Antifolk Songs” column in the Village Voice. A couple of weeks later, True followed that article with a column raving yet again about Old Time Relijun. Read the entire colorful passage HERE.
Likewise, esteemed critic and musician John Darnielle (singer/songwriter of The Mountain Goats and Last Plane to Jakarta editor, et al.) writes one of the most eloquent and flowing prose pieces about the latest Old Time Relijun disc in his latest zine. The review (clumsily quoted above) must be read in its entirety to be fully appreciated. Read it HERE.
Part of the reason for this early excitement about the album is due to the band’s return to the road, beginning with a Western states jaunt running from August 24th to September 8th, followed by a full U.S. tour beginning September 29th. Dates are still being confirmed for the fall, but all current confirmations can be found below.
Old Time Relijun continues to further shatter rock’s imperious formalism with its forthcoming latest K Records release, due October 9th, 2007. Song after song, the ferocity of vocalist/guitarist Arrington De Dionyso draws listeners deeper into a world where language, rhythm and unrepentant libido collide. The music is temperamental, unwieldy and unyielding; aimed to cut listeners to the bone.
Catharsis In Crisis was written and recorded at Calvin Johnson’s fabled Dub Narcotic Studio in Olympia, WA, over four inspired days and nights. Legendary producer Steve Fisk was recruited to mix this raw material into Old Time Relijun’s most fully realized album to date. Old Time Relijun + Calvin Johnson + Steve Fisk = a magical alchemy of sound and light. But don’t worry folks, it’s still terrible background music.
Arrington de Dionyso’s electrifying vocal delivery retains the blood-soaked risk of a true underground visionary, while showcasing his mastery of over-the-top nuance. Aaron Hartman (contrabass) and Germaine Baca (drums) propel the album forward with relentless bump-and-grind. Catharsis In Crisis is the first album to reveal Old Time Relijun’s new secret weapon, subversive “saxophonista” Benjamin Hartman, who uses and abuses his classical training to drive the band further into the spheres.
Often lazily compared to a No Wave version of Captain Beefheart, Old Time Relijun’s subversive -- dare we call it sadistic -- mashing of world folk music styles sounds brutally fresh. No Wave? Forget that. Catharsis In Crisis is Yes Wave for the young millennium. “Daemon Meeting” (MP3) blazes through a bizarre convocation of underworld creatures, to conclude with the query, “what does it mean to be human?” A tenor saxophone throttles the dub-infected “Liberation” with propulsive urgency through a zone of “young life and decay,” while songs such as “In the Crown of Lost Light” and “Invisible New” confront infinity with their bright shimmering sound. Even Dante is given a run for his money with the Ennio Morricone influenced junk-disco centerpiece “Veleno Mortale,” actually an Italian “re-translation” of the brutal “Burial Mound” featured on Old Time Relijun’s album 2012.
Taken as a whole, the three discs of “The Lost Light Trilogy“ (in reverse chronological order: Catharsis In Crisis, 2012 and Lost Light) are a tour-de-force of myth, dream and autobiography. "We wanted 'The Lost Light Trilogy’ to be a kind of rock opera,” de Dionyso says. “But with a non-linear development of plots and characters. Every song on each album contains musical or lyrical fragments of other songs within the trilogy, like broken shards of mirrors reflecting each other infinitely, the way a cubist painting presents multiple perspectives of the same subject, or the labyrinthine twists in a Borges story.”
Catharsis In Crisis, while concluding the trilogy, also stands on its own. Like the confrontational, compulsively danceable live show for which Old Time Relijun is known and loved, Catharsis In Crisis is a record and a testament to the oscillations of opposites. Darkness and Light, Water and Fire, Spirit and Matter struggle within Old Time Relijun’s alchemical oeuvre. From this elemental battle, the music emerges, dripping and triumphant.
More about Old Time Relijun:
Olympia, Washington. New Year’s Day, 1995. A dark and smelly basement. Three young musicians gather to tackle the vast songbook of Arrington de Dionyso. They had heard his self-recorded cassettes. The songs were wild and lovely. de Dionyso (the rebellious son of Methodist ministers) played every instrument with the soul of an outsider artist who didn’t know any better. He knew he needed to bring his songs to life.
The original trio was brought together for one show. Just to see what would happen. They called themselves Old Time Relijun. Arrington played a $20 guitar and a beat up bass clarinet. He sang with a mixture of piss and vinegar that exploded with naive charisma. Bryce Panic harassed the drums. Aaron Hartman beat on a two-string upright bass with a microphone taped to its bridge. They communicated with the clairvoyance of long-married ninjas.
That first show, everything went red: strings broke, the bass was a solid mass of feedback, the PA was blown. They used de Dionyso’s songs as a template to meld shock-ritual with a mad-tea-party-dance-vibe. They barely noticed the college kids in full Riot Grrrl gear screaming, they had no idea that punkers and hippies were dancing together. Something awful happened that night. A band was born.
Soon they were playing full sets to friends and taste-making Olympia hipsters alike. They played every show they could - whether or not they were on the bill. They developed the kind of intuitive free-jazz rapport of which most bands could only dream.
In 1996, Old Time Relijun recorded their first album, Songbook Volume One. They released it themselves, financing the production by tricking a friend out of his meager inheritance. The CD was packaged in stolen popcorn bags.
In 1997, Calvin Johnson invited the band to record a song for the “Selector Dub Narcotic” compilation for his K Records label. At that point, a beautiful relationship was born.
After Panic left to pursue a life of dance and yoga in India, one of the band’s younger fans, Phil Elvrum, asked if he could join. He moved to Olympia, and Old Time Relijun’s second of many lives began. Elvrum’s caveman beats and undeniable production savvy helped launch the first three Old Time Relijun albums K would release. Uterus and Fire (1999), was a bombastic exercise in recording in the red. Serena de Pecera (2000) was a one-night multilingual wonder, acting as a coda to the unyielding momentum of Uterus and Fire. Then came the band’s first true masterwork, Witchcraft Rebellion (2001), an album as deep and bizarre as anything you’ll find on your record shelf. A retelling of the first chapters of Genesis from the serpent’s point of view.
After a couple U.S. and European tours, Elvrum’s decided to focus his energy on his recording projects and his own band, The Microphones. Old Time Relijun continued in a variety of mutated formations, with various lost souls sitting behind the drum set.
The group experienced a brief lull in activity as de Dionyso began a vagabond period that would take him hitch-hiking across the United States and back and forth between Italy, France and Argentina. A compilation of unreleased oddities, Varieties of Religious Experience, was released in 2003, and both de Dionyso and Hartman had time to reevaluate the direction their band would take.
During his travels, de Dionyso composed an outline for what would become “The Lost Light Trilogy”. The first two installments, Lost Light (2003) and 2012 (2005), recorded with the help of drummers Rives Elliot and Jamie Peterson, respectively, saw extensive touring, a wider audience for the band, as well as high praise from critics world wide.
Old Time Relijun Live:
w/ AIDS Wolf
08/24 Eugene, OR John Henry’s
08/25 San Francisco, CA The Knockout
08/26 Santa Cruz, CA Blue Lagoon
08/28 San Diego, CA Casbah
08/29 Upland, CA Baldy Brewery
08/30 Los Angeles, CA The Echo
08/31 Los Angeles, CA The Smell
09/01 Oakland, CA 21 Grand
09/04 Davis, CA Delta of Venus
09/06 Eureka, CA Accident Gallery
09/07 Portland, OR Satyricon
09/08 Seattle, WA Atlas Clothing
09/29 Missoula, MT Badlander
09/30 Bozeman, MT The Filling Station
10/02 St. Paul, MN V’s Club
10/03 Iowa City, IA Picador
10/04 Chicago, IL Ronny’s
10/05 Bloomington, IN Bear’s Place
10/07 Columbus, OH Bourbon St.
10/09 Oberlin, OH The Sco
10/10 Pittsburgh, PA Garfield Artworks
10/11 Middleton, CT Wesleyan
10/13 Brooklyn, NY Southpaw (WFMU event w/ Oneida)
10/14 Montreal, QC Divan Orange*
10/15 Quebec City, QC Bal du Lezard*
10/16 Halifax, NS The Seahorse*
10/17 Sackville, NB Mount Allison*
10/19 Brooklyn, NY Soundfix Records (Fanatic CMJ Party)
10/19 New York, NY Knitting Factory (Panache CMJ Showcase)*
10/21 Annandale on Hudson, NY Bard College*
10/24 Hartford, CT Charter Oak Center*
10/25 Poughkeepsie, NY Vassar College*
10/26 Jamaica Plane, MA The Milky Way*
10/27 Providence, RI as220*
10/28 Philadelphia, PA COPY Gallery
10/30 Washington, DC Velvet Lounge*
10/31 New York, NY TBA*
11/01 Hoboken, NJ WFMU Live Performance
11/02 Chapel Hill, NC Local 506
11/03 Charleston, SC Cumberlands
11/04 Athens, GA Secret Squirrel
11/06 Birmingham, AL Bottletree w/ Don Caballero
11/07 New Orleans, LA Circle Bar
11/08 Houston, TX Proletariat
11/09 Austin, TX Emo’s
11/11 Oklahoma City, OK Conservatory
Catharsis In Crisis Tracklisting:
Release Date: October 9th, 2007
01. Indestructible Life!
02. The Tightest Cage
03. Daemon Meeting (MP3)
04. Liberation
05. Garden of Pomegranates
06. Akavishim
07. Dark Matter
08. The Circular Ruins
09. Veleno Mortale
10. Dig Down Deeper
11. A Wild Harvest
12. The Second Day of Creation
13. In The Crown of Lost Light
14. The Invisible New
On The Web:
www.krecs.com/oldtimerelijun
www.myspace.com/theoldtimerelijun
http://www.krecs.com/
www.myspace.com/kfamilywww.fanaticpromotion.com/current/old_catharsis.html
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