Rainer Maria 'Catastrophe Keeps Us Together' album

Rainer Maria defy comparison. From their very first performances at d.i.y. basement and living rooms shows across the U.S. almost 10 years ago to the release of their latest, instantly inspiring album Catastrophe Keeps Us Together, this inseparable trio has always set their sights on uncharted musical territories, rather than mainstream musical trends. During the past three years, the band has focused almost exclusively on writing, recording and mixing Catastrophe Keeps Us Together. After extensive touring in the U.S., Japan, Canada, and Europe for the better part of 2003 and 2004, they returned to the studio. Drummer William Kuehn explains: “We came home from touring without a set label situation. It would have been easy to go back to doing things the way we had for so long. Instead we wrote the most personal songs we could, without timelines or deadlines, answering to no one but ourselves."

Catastrophe Keeps Us Together is a startling leap forward for even the most restless band. And it is appropriately unique as the first release of the nascent Grunion Records label. The themes of love lost always present in Caithlin De Marrais' lyrics appear now as a world collapsing all around our ears. Is it the end of the world, or a new one beginning--where all you need in a catastrophe is the one you love to make it through? Her voice is as delicate as it is resolute. And singing along underneath her, not with his voice but broad guitar work, Kyle Fischer delivers his most beautiful and spine-tingling performance to date. These gorgeous sounds are answered and propelled by the mercurial drumming of Kuehn. This band lives and dies by the rhythm and melody of Kuehn's drums, and it's no wonder that over the years, the line-up has remained the same . . . there's something magnificent in the way these three bond together musically.

Throughout the new album, these tightly structured songs hit many atmospheric highs. Equal parts restraint, taste and power, Catastrophe Keeps Us Together shows Rainer Maria challenging them on every single track. Songs like "Life of Leisure," "Burn" and "Already Lost" sonically burst off the walls and ceilings. And songs like "Terrified," "Cities Above" and the dreamlike cover of "I'll Keep It with Mine" from Nico's Chelsea Girls, written by Bob Dylan, engage the listener at such an intimate level, it's as if the band has lost all sense of boundary between the outside world and their own heads.

Catastrophe’s story might have begun in late 2004, when the band stepped into the upstate- New York home studio of Grammy Award-winning producer Malcolm Burn, who has worked alongside the likes of Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Iggy Pop and Emmylou Harris. The band immediately found themselves in a recording environment like no other. The studio occupies the entire first floor of the grand house, "Maison Bleue." As De Marrais explains, "Malcolm's studio didn't have any rules or restraints when it came to music. It was a space entirely devoted to freethinking and interaction. You could start playing the piano in one room, and end up singing in another, all live, in a single take."

Burns worked on all but the two songs that were produced by Peter Katis, best known for his work with Interpol and Tiger Lou. With Katis, the band further sharpened the signature edge that has earned them legions of devoted and adoring fans. "Peter really understood right away what to do with the songs we brought him," Fischer said. "He did an amazing job of translating to tape exactly what we do, then drawing out all the best stuff for the listener to latch onto."

Rainer Maria came together in 1995 in the not-so-sleepy university town of Madison, Wisconsin. Famous in no small part for its long history of social activism, Madison supplied the perfect environment for the members to run a music collective, hosting their own d.i.y. events for seminal Indie/Punk acts such as Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Make* Up and Promise Ring while these bands were very much in their infancy.

Two years later, making time to write and rehearse in between attending college and promoting events, they recorded their first full-length album, Past Worn Searching. Independent outlets across the country immediately embraced this record, much to the band’s surprise and elation. Just weeks after the album's release, the band received a call from the home office of their tiny indie label Polyvinyl Records, to say that a college radio station in Maryland had charted the record #1, knocking out local favorites Fugazi. In 1999 the second full length, Look Now Look Again placed Rainer Maria among the likes of Eminem, Rage Against the Machine and Beck in Spin magazine’s "Top 20 Albums of the Year." Things would only get better.

After finishing school and relocating east to Brooklyn, New York in late 1999, the band sat down to write their third album, A Better Version of Me. Released in 2001, the album earned not only accolades from the press but the number one spot on CMJ's College Music charts. In 2003 they released their fourth record, Long Knives Drawn. It’s single, "Ears Ring," reached number one on the Alternative Specialty Chart and went into rotation on MTV2.

With Catastrophe Keeps Us Together, everything coheres. Beautifully direct and aurally complex throughout, this is easily the most stunning and original work to date by a stunningly original band.

Tracks 1 & 2 Produced by Peter Katis at Tarquin Studios
Track 2 Mixed by Peter Katis at Tarquin Studios
Track 1 mixed by Kyle Fischer at Home
Tracks 3-11 Produced and Mixed by Malcolm Burn at Maison Bleu
Tracks 1-11 Mastered by Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound

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Rainer Maria - Catastrophe Keeps Us Together