w/A Frames, the Cripples
Sat Sept 3, Sunset, 9 pm, $7, 21+.
Old Time Relijun are one of the quintessential forces in the steady-going Olympia scene of the past several years. The group has made a decade-long career of mutating the itchy Anglo-funk of progenitors like Gang of Four (as well as K Records label mates Dub Narcotic Sound System and the Make-Up) into black magic–warped and gene-spliced beasts. The perpetual trio of Arrington De Dionyso (vocals, guitar, reeds), Aaron Hartman (bass), and a thus far ever-shifting drummer have produced a steady trickle of records that evoke some of the barking avant blues of Captain Beefheart and latter-era Tom Waits, but push the music further both into brutish simplicity and scuttling improvisational weirdness.
Last year's Lost Light was the most focused and hard-hitting statement of the OTR oeuvre to date; its clipped and focused recording and tight-seamed songwriting felt like the essential statement of OTR rock music. Its successor, the recently released 2012, suggests a future stretched ever further beyond the narrow, if potent, row that OTR has hoed thus far. Of the thread, as well as the apparent shift between, the two albums, De Dionyso says, "I see 2012 as a sort of sequel to Lost Light—there is a continuation, an evolution, through both records. Lost Light descends into underworld shamanic voyage, doing battle with shadow forces and vampires, and reemerging transformed. I think 2012 is more forward-thinking—it broadcasts that energy into the world of today and tomorrow."
Fittingly, while Lost Light felt like a lone barbarian carving his way through prehistory, 2012 feels more like a burgeoning civilization. The former beats a consistent, if harried out, rock path while the latter indulges in a wandering and willfully divergent trek. The results of this musical expansiveness are uneven; while the throat-singing swamp of "Magnetic Electric" feels a little undercooked, other tracks like the bass clarinet versus chopped, montuno-ish piano instrumental "Lions and Lambs," and the serene closer "The Blood and the Milk" provide both refreshing respite from the consistent chug of the rest of the record and genuine suggestions towards OTR's wider capabilities.
Throughout, tracks like the hand-jive-swaggering "Your Mama Used to Dance" and the terse opener "Chemical Factory" maintain the hysterical vibe of OTR albums past. The addition of experimental rock MVP drummer Jamie Peterson (of Dada Swing, the Curtains) lends a more assured and fortified swat than ever in the band's history. The production and arrangements are more ornate and adventurous as well; De Dionyso's bass clarinet has more of a presence than ever before, alternately lending Albert Ayler-ish squall and degenerate-soul horn arrangements, and there are a bevy of jittery keyboard interjections throughout.
2012's thematic net is cast as wide as its musical palette; as ever, De Dionyso shows a predilection for obsessing over mythical monsters, wild animals, and his own libido, but more so than ever, there seems to be a unifying, if skeletal, concept guiding De Dionyso's slathering rants. "2012 has a large cast of characters. Each song is its own chapter in the fabric of the album as a whole. 'Chemical Factory' traces the evolution of our DNA from primordial soup to genetic engineering, 'Wolves and Wolverines' is word for word from a dream, also about an evolution, of a different kind. 'Reptilians' is about fossil fuels turning back into dinosaurs and that kind of thing. 'Burial Mound,' and its reprise piece, 'King of Lost Light,' are important for the resolution they provide." 2012 is, incidentally, the year that the cycles of the universe will finally expire and the world will end according to the Mayan calendar. The album certainly has a sense of the alien and slightly dreadful nature of lost civilizations and lost technologies.
All of this fever-dream/fantasy-novel imagery can make seemingly more direct songs. The knotted love lament "Los Angeles" seems a little out of place and difficult to digest earnestly, but De Dionyso insists that all of OTR's lyrical content comes from a place of utter sincerity. "I don't sing anything I don't believe in," he says. "Without complete and total physical/emotional/spiritual investment, the whole thing would fall flat on the flat earth. I try to come from a place void and empty when I perform to allow those strange untamable forces of nature to sing through me."
