We’re musicians based in Portland, OR.
There are 4 of us.
We are Kali Giaritta (vocals, keys, percussion), Matt Harmon (vocals, guitar), Cole Huiskamp (bass), and Stephen Colvin (drums).
Kali and Matt write pop songs on acoustic guitar and then we all try to twist them around as much as possible without making them suck.
We used to have a banjo player and often got called a bluegrass or folk band. He was really great and particularly unique in playing style, so when he moved to Argentina, we didn’t try to replace him.
Now we call ourselves Americana/Pop and perpetually hope that someone (you?) will suggest a more specific, appropriate, preferably made-up genre title.
Our approach to songwriting and arranging currently dabbles in an interest in trying to through-compose a bit more than relying on standard song structures, but we’re trying to keep it catchy.
We’re usually loud, jagged, and sweaty when we play live, and are always really happy to be allowed to be in that state.
We have a self-released indie folk album (One Shoe Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, 2008), a self-released pop EP (Don’t Wait for the Rescue Squad, 2009), and an Americana/rock album that our friends at Timber Carnival Records put out for us (This Cage Has No Bottom, 2010). All of them can be obtained on this site or over at Bandcamp.
We’ve had the honor over this last year of having tracks featured on Tender Loving Empire’s “Friends and Friends of Friends” compilation series (“Thought Thief”, 2011) and the PDX Pop Now! compilation (“(Don’t) Panic”, 2011), as well as having our animated music video (“Why Do Crows?”) screened with a handful of great PDX videos during the 2011 NW Film Festival.
Various individual members of the band have been known to enjoy overwrought concept albums, night-walks, cooking, building things, local beer, bicycles, hiking, whisk(e)y, stray cats, good books, oceans, swimming holes, psychedelia, arts and crafts, the concept of a lost pre-10,500-BC civilization that was really advanced, long drives on empty stretches of highway, and wishing that any of us could battle-rap.
We’re really grateful for every opportunity we get to play our vision of pop music for folks who want to hear it.
If you want to talk to us, feel free to send an email to asceticjunkies [at] gmail [dot] com.
Thanks for poking around our site!
“The Portland-based quintet, has never pretended to be anything other than playful, and that playful irreverence makes their frenetic virtuosity all the more impressive, most especially in concert… [the Junkies] demonstrate a proclivity for pop gymnastics, not unlike the variety which has earned the Dirty Projectors some of their praise.” -JOE CLINKENBEARD, SPECTRUM CULTURE
“[This Cage Has No Bottom] takes all the things that were already charming about the Junkies — sweet harmonies from Matt Harmon and Kali Giaritta; jaunty melodies that tie pop sensibilities through Americana footstomps; a careful blend of smarts, sincerity and cleverness that keeps the big-heartedness from tipping into sugary-sweetness — and tightens it all up. The songs feel quicker to come into focus, and there’s new confidence in the songwriting, which, this time, involved all the Junkies (as opposed to just Harmon and Giaritta). There’s not a weak track to be found, but if I had to play favorites, I’d point you at “The Eyeball,” with its circling, pulsing closing section, and “Renegade Salesman,” which closes Cage with banjo, uplift and a nudging optimism.” -MOLLY TEMPLETON, EUGENE WEEKLY
“This Cage Has No Bottom has the feeling of a modern life put to song, hymns made for and among good friends doing their best in the here and now.” -MARANDA BISH, PORTLAND MERCURY
“A mix of tuneful percussion, fingerstyle guitar, banjo, and layered vocals, The Ascetic Junkies are pop-inflected hipsters with more than a passing interest in Americana. The band might be a little hard to pigeon-hole stylistically, but all the better: good music is good music.” -MARK STEIGHNER, REDIVIVA.COM
“…The Ascetic Junkies are one of the first bands to reinterpret bluegrass, a genre known for complacency, into something new and totally exciting. On the band’s sophomore album, The Cage Has No Bottom, the Junkies use genres like a game of four square, jumping from more traditional bluegrass to straight pop and more experimental flair, sometimes in the middle of the same song. The effect is initially a bit disorienting—imagine spending an afternoon in a museum after drinking a few too many glasses of red wine—but it creates some arresting pop moments.” -MICHAEL MANNHEIMER, WILLAMETTE WEEK
“Refusing to be pigeonholed, quintet the Ascetic Junkies intermingles bluegrass with modern pop and rock in a way that keeps toes tapping.” -WILLAMETTE WEEK LOCAL CUT
“[CLATTERING INDIE FOLK] With more and more bands in town learning about the power of acoustic instruments, we should be thankful they can wrench some great sounds out of them. The quintet known as the Ascetic Junkies does just that by introducing the stomping joy of bluegrass and country into its navel-gazing pop (à la Tilly and the Wall but without that silly tap dancing thing). The resulting music, as heard on the band’s debut, One Shoe Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, has quickly marked it as one of the best young groups in Portland.” -ROBERT HAM, WILLAMETTE WEEK
“(Windows Sell the House is) a great example of the modern bluegrass music that’s been growing all over the country, from the deepest deltas of bluegrass country to the edges of the country, like Portland, Oregon… One of the things I love so much about modern independent music is that there are no genre restrictions. You can have a song called “Dracula” and not be goth. You can be from Portland and play bluegrass. It’s a cool new world, as far as music is considered… The Ascetic Junkies have solved the problem of always being locked out. They now have no doors or walls.” -CERULEAN’S LOVE OF MUSIC
“…what sticks out most is the fun they create no matter how slow chords move or how quick the spoons clap. One Shoe Over The Cuckoo’s Nest brilliantly comes off as vocalists Kali Giaritta and Matt Harmon’s ultimate love letter to one another.” -RON TREMBATH, FENSEPOST
