Get some 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
www.krecs.com
www.myspace.com/kfamily
www.fanaticpromotion.com/current/old_catharsis.html