Arrington De Dionyso Malaikat dan Singa

(K Records)

[SONIC SPIRITUALITY] Arrington de Dionyso has kept his musical output split between the hopped-up blues skronk of his band Old Time Relijun and his experimental output that features either entrancing throat singing or hot blasts of free jazz. For his latest solo effort, de Dionyso tunes into both wavelengths. He uses part of Malaikat dan Singa to lay down deep drones with voice or bass clarinet; the rest is taken up with the more straightforward sound he cultivated with OTR (a few of the songs here were built off of a recent recording session that band did).

The connecting thread here is de Dionyso’s distinctive barking vocals as well as the album’s spiritual content. The lyrics, sung entirely in Indonesian, are taken from the works of mystic poet William Blake and The Zohar, a Hebrew text sacred to Kabbalah.

It’s heady stuff, but don’t that dissuade you from testing the waters of this fine album. Like all great spiritual music, and the best parts of de Dionyso’s prodigious discography, by simply approaching his hypnotic compositions with an open mind you’ll pick up on the message cut deep into the album’s abyssal grooves and drones.

BUY IT: Arrington de Dionyso’s Malaikat dan Singa comes out Tuesday, Nov. 3.

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