Revolutionary Army of the Infant Jesus

Where to start? The name? The reference to a terrorist group in the Spanish-French film Ese Oscuro Objeto del Deseo (That Obscure Object of Desire)? That they've existed since 1985 and only popped out 5 albums (3 of which were in the last 6 years)? That half their songs are in French/Italian/Latin/Portuguese but the band is just a bunch of Liverpudlians called Jon, Paul (note: they are not a Beatles side project), Dave, Sue and Les. That they perform live once in a blue moon and when they do its laden with scenes from Tarkovsky films?

RAIJ are quite simply one of the most distinctive music groups (let alone Christian music groups) I have ever come across.

Think Dead Can Dance meets Orthodox Priests meets those ridiculous recordings you made in your bedroom when you were 14 and only your mum ever heard. And I mean that as a compliment. One minute you're listening to gothic folk excursion interspersed with Italian excerpts about the sanctity of life, next minute you're on a 12 minute journey of ethereal and haunting beauty, juxtapose with industrial noises more at home on a Nine Inch Nails record. What better place to start this blog but with a celebration of such music.

RAIJ are a refreshing and beautiful escape from the homogeneity of modern life and the religious institution of Christianity. They are an invigorating and effervescent soul cry; a melancholic and sombre dance of divinely inspired art; a celebration of the mysterious and unsearchable nature of the Divine that Paul writes about in Romans 11. 

Alongside all of this, what I love about RAIJ is that they really are the definition of underground music. Interviews and videos of the group are few and far between - potentially because they started back when the internet was but a meagre fledgling - but also because the group appears to live and breathe the enigmatic nature that they present in their art. The group has been resistant to ‘explaining' what they're about - their own Bandcamp says that they “have confounded musical classification and studiously declined every invitation to explain their unique form of musical and artistic experimentation."

This may beg the question for some as to what they actually do believe. This article on the Church Times gives you a good feel for what the group are all about:

“Christianity is a shared position for the RAIJ, and beyond that there are different forms and shades of personal commitment. The shared position is that Christian ideas and experience are a vocabulary for the pursuit and rediscovery of the sacred.

“In particular, we have been influenced by the Orthodox tradition and its understanding of restoration. For the Orthodox, the icon is not a representation of something sacred: it is a sacred object; it’s a fragment of glorified nature, a moment of eternity framed in a finite space.

“The Eastern Churches have always stressed God’s immanence and the active agency of the Holy Spirit. This is an idea that has appealed to us. There is a beautiful quote from the Orthodox writer Kallistos Ware — ‘Man’s purpose is not to dominate and exploit nature, but to hallow and transfigure it.’ This is the perfect imperative for the artist. Our creative methodology, how we go about identifying and collecting the sources and fragments that are part of our compositions — to us this is not about deconstruction: it feels like restoration. We are trying to reassemble and reconnect things in a way that reveals a deeper truth and a more elusive beauty."

I grew up in an evangelical protestant context where the words ‘Orthodox' and ‘Icon' would send shivers down the spine of even those who were actually allowed to read Harry Potter and Rupert the Bear (I swear I wasn't allowed to read the latter due to the elves. My mum adamantly denies this). So, naturally, my probably post-evangelical self was drawn immediately to the RAIJ.

I think the form of Christianity I had been overly saturated in had certainly blinkered my outlook on spirituality and what God is/isn't. My discovery of RAIJ came at a time when I really needed to discover a different side of the Divine - one that was far from the paralysing perfectionism that pervades Western culture (and thus, the Western church). The music from RAIJ may not fit some people's high production value standards but it certainly meets a level of creativity and sacred searching far greater than most.

I've placed a few of my favourite songs throughout this blog post but you can listen to their first 4 albums on Bandcamp and download the entire catalogue for just £22.40. Bargain. Their social media presence is minimal and they are not to be found on Spotify (which makes them all the more exciting).

Their first 3 albums (The Gift of Tears, Mirror, beauty will save the world) are their best work imo but their latest album, Songs of Yearning, is still very good, just not quite as experimental as the first...so naturally everyone else will enjoy a lot more than me. You can check out a video of a single they released a couple of years ago at the bottom of this page.

I'll leave you with this quote from an interview they did with Bandcamp:

“I think we think of ourselves as confused individuals, stumbling around in the dark, trying to find some recognizable landmarks. Trying to find our way home."