the original junkies become there is no mountain

There Is No Mountain is Kali Giaritta and Matt Harmon, formerly of The Ascetic Junkies.

The Ascetic Junkies are no more.

The band has been pared down to two, featuring founding Junkies and husband-and-wife duo Matt Harmon and Kali Giaritta in multi-instrumental roles where "I now play percussion and keys in addition to singing, and Matt added in a few carefully chosen effects pedals to bring in some new sounds," Kali says.

Now, there is only There Is No Mountain. Kali and Matt decided to relaunch under a new name chiefly because "our style has changed pretty far away from the AJs stuff, and also, no one in this great country seems to know the word 'ascetic,'" Matt jokes.

The debut song from There Is No Mountain is "one of the first tracks we've recorded just as a duo in a long time," Matt explains. "It's an African highlife-tinged pop song built around vocals, simple percussion and distorted acoustic guitar."

Listen to "Owl Hymn" below, which you might have heard at Fall of the Band this past fall (and right click to download):
There's a familiarity in "Owl Hymn" that's definitely reminiscent of The Ascetic Junkies but also a freshness to the pared down track. Full of stop-and-go buoyancy, the song is as lively as ever but engagingly different with its malleable rhythms—it's a new sound from recognizable voices.

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