Mikel Dimmick Spiral Joy Band: Lullabies for Jeff Dean
SPIRAL JOY BAND – LULLABIES FOR JEFF DEAN (CD on VHF Records, http://www.vhfrecords.com)
The Spiral Joy Band was formed in 2001 as a hook up between Pelt members Mikel Dimmick and Mike Gangloff, and Karl Precoda (Last Days of May, The Dream Syndicate). Until now they have privileged live performances over recorded works, and these performances have typically featured extended drone works for acoustic instruments much like Pelt's recent work on '(Untitled)' and 'Pearls from the River', also both on VHF. Instruments used and abused include tibetan singing bowls, gongs, sruti box, esraj, tanpura, shenai, and tongue drum, as well as a range of more conventional western paraphernalia.
'Lullaby 1' concentrates on the metal, placing the listener inside a Golden Triangle hilltop temple filled with bells and gongs being struck and bowed in ever more skull melting ways until consciousness gives way leaving a single sonorous chord ringing in its place. 'Lullaby 2' is insanely long at nearly 42 minutes, evolving from the deep listening trance space created by Gangloff's esraj, to some Last Chord at the End of the Universe action as furious percussion and shrieking shenais push the track over the edge of sanity, and an infinite number of howler monkeys toss their typewriters out of their trees in admiration and sympathy. By its conclusion, most listeners' nerve endings are quite possibly going to be arcing like downed power lines. 'Lullaby 3' thrums with expectancy in the early stages of its 26 minute duration, deeply placed bells and whistles giving way to circulating tampura drones and stately piano figures as if to overwrite the jarring electrical storm of 'Lullaby 2' with a heady tropical sea breeze, though it too gets frenetic in its latter stages. Although the entirety of the release is some kind of high-water mark for Eastern-influenced acoustic drone, this final track points the way towards some promising new avenues for exploration.
-- Tony Dale
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