Ok, let me preface this with a disclosure: I am a huge, unabashed fanboy of Arrington’s and consider his old band Old Time Relijun among my favorite live and recorded bands of all time. Naturally, I’m predisposed to loving most of what this Olympia-based musician and artist puts out there. Even though challenging to the casual listener, (even fans of K Recs furrier and cuddlier output might be scared by AdD’s raw, blood-and-fire sound) I see his work as bridging the line between ancient, modernist motifs and edgy post-modern voodoo-pastiche. Arrington is one of those artists (like his obvious compositional hero Captain Beefheart ) whose work must be taken in as an arc, a traveling trajectory moving through different spaces and examining the muse from myriad angles, some down and rock n roll, some more hypnagogic and trance-worthy.
Having mourned the end of Old Time Relijun after their final 2007 masterpiece Catharsis In Crisis it’s so, so good to clap ears on the ruff and tuff playfulness and extremity of Malakait dan Singa . The difference in personnel means a different orientation that favors a bit more obtuseness and pentatonic trance than the garage-y angularity (sorry) of OTR. The opener, “I Feel The Quickening” is as close as it gets to the classic sound, syncopated guitar repetitions over a staggered beat that would do Drumbo proud. Little delay-bombs and trippy flourishes underscore the satori of the lyrics and foreshadow the descent into psych that comes later on the album. Track 2 “I Create In the Face of Destruction” is a total surprise and delight, starting on a classic dancehall one-drop with Arrington flexing his vocal prowess while sounding exactly like Burro Banton in a total dub mashdown that could work as a dancehall anthem (get some dubplates made!). “There Will Be No Survivors” delves danker into dubwise territory, evoking a darker tone overall with obligatory delay swishes and swooshes, sounding loose and improvised but for all that dragging us into a dark and paranoid realm where the vocals are the only anchor, sort of mocking global tension like a knowing jester in a court of fools. On “Tak Terbatas (versi iblis)” we descend yet another level, the vocals chimeric, switching into.. Indonesian? Arrington’s throat-singing prowess very much to the fore, supported by repetitive and hypnotizing monotone riff, which drips little delayed bits and pieces here and there with heady pan-play on the mix. Let’s say I was on some psychotropic drugs while listening to this album.. this would be the “Set the Controls” moment, where the loss of ego surrenders the mind to the visceral thrust and gyrations of the music and you have to simply let go and drop into the churning ritualism of sound.
Title track starts off with some gorgeous shredded guitar and Floyd – ian drum majestics, reminding me slightly of later-era Boredoms in it’s pulse, sounding very regal and ceremonial. “Jiwa dari Jiwaku” returns us to Indonesia thru a trance-punk lens while all elements come together, the throat-singing, the invocational dubwise mix, the pentatonic guitars that inspire an air of gamelan-punk. We’re at the apex now. “The Akedah (The Moon is Full)” really dives into the gamelan-esque, harmonics, percussion and bass doing a fine reflection of slower, trippier Javanese style, with English vocals returning and sounding like a narrative to a nightmarish shadow puppet show. Album closer “Halilintar (versi Jatilan)” snaps the dreamer back into attention, a pounding no-wavy rhythm is set and we ascend ecstatically into that fevered, hot space that Arrington’s entire oeuvre seems to be cajoling us towards, shamanistically. A triumph of Western hypno-punk, perfectly and sinuously entwined with Asian motifs, Dancehall/Dub and will make all other fans of Old Time Relijun rejoice that the canon has only been improved upon, the breadth of AdD’s explorations only expanding. A deep, timely and timeless collection of songs, whose interrelations and intricacies slowly reveal themselves over repeated and active listening, as all good albums do.
