Old Time Relijun, Prizzy Prizzy Please ‘leave it all on the floor’ at the Bluebird

Portland-based avant-garde rock band The Old Time Relijun performed at The Bluebird Tuesday night in support of its latest album, “Catharsis in Crisis.” Local acts Prizzy Prizzy Please and The Big Sleep shared the bill in an eclectic night of music.\nBloomington’s own Prizzy began the evening with a rollicking set, stomping through songs from its self-titled 2007 release with reckless abandon and exciting precision. Fun-loving pop and party riffs are fused with punk rhythms to create the band’s adrenaline-drenched sound. \nPrizzy’s performances are defined by the pedal-to-the-metal energy they display on-stage. Singer and saxophonist Mark Pallman takes pleasure in “leaving it all on the floor” every performance. He said his high-pitched vocals were inspired by high-octane performers like Freddy Mercury and Prince.\n“Its fun to play with that much energy,” Pallman said. “That’s why we do it; its extreme rock. Hopefully people will get into it.”\nPrizzy books performances at Bloomington bars like The Bluebird and Uncle Fester’s each month, frequently rubbing shoulders with national acts. The opportunity to leave an impression on touring bands is one local bands like Prizzy try to capitalize on.\n“It’s a lot of fun to be asked to open for national acts like The Old Time Relijun,” Pallman said. “Bands like that come through here often and it is fun to get the opportunity to meet them and play with them.”\nThe Old Time Relijun rose from the depths of the Olympia, Wash., party scene in the mid-’90s in a flurry of noisy experimentation. Singer, guitarist and bass clarinetist Arrington de Dionyso’s uncanny songs and improvisational spirit helped the band to gain national indie prominence.\nRelijun offers up a unique experience with each performance, leaning heavily on improvisation and sometimes performing with no particular songs in mind. Tuesday night provided no exception as de Dionyso’s visceral vocals pushed the band into primal cataclysms of jazz-blanketed clamor.\n“Improvisation is an essential part of the creative process,” De Dionyso said. “Our song structures tend to be loose and elastic with certain points that we all come together on.”\nRelijun, who last appeared in Bloomington in October, tore through several new songs from Catharsis.\nWritten and recorded in a four-day, said bassist and co-founded Aaron Hartman, the Catharsis sessions epitomize a group that celebrates the joy and despair of life through the vibrancy of sound.\n“We had a psychic musical relationship going on,” Hartman said. “It’s the same thing we’ve been doing for 12 years.”\nThe band’s on-stage jubilation and de Dionyso’s tortured voice provided a backdrop for drummer Germaine Baca’s garage-dance drumbeats.\nThe musical conversation that is The Old Time Relijun is unrefined, unedited and, to some, unnerving. Hartman admits that Relijun can sound manic at times, with radical swings from bug-eyed free-jazz to precision funk. He said while these dramatic changes are unintentional, they are anything but unwelcome.\n“Sometimes they just happen and you can feel an awesome tingling sensation onstage,” Hartman said. “The music is simple and fun to play. I stop thinking after the first note.”