Klang Industries

03/11/2023

https://spiraljoyband.bandcamp.com/album/spiral-joy-band-b-w-jacob-sunderlin

2 track album

01/09/2023

Bandcamp Friday!!!!!�Our new album Elvehjem is available now, here: �spiraljoyband.bandcamp.com/album/elvehjem (https://spiraljoyband.bandcamp.com/album/elvehjem)��Available digitally, as LP on its own or bundled with previous LP releases for a 10% discount!!! ��Of Elvehjem, Bill Meyer writes:�Without Saturn, you got no rings, right? It’s easy to see Spiral Joy Band as a similarly orbital entity, forever existing in relation to its parent band, Pelt. But, just as all those hunks of space rock would feel equally substantial if your rocket ship hit them whilst circling a planet or floating on their own through the galaxy, Spiral Joy Band has demonstrated on the recent archival recordings culled from its Wisconsin sojourn in the early 2010s, it has been its own thing, and that thing is pretty solid. Elvehjem is another album-length excerpt from Patrick Best, Mikel Dimmick and Troy Schafer’s trove of basement jams, and on this one, they assert an identity separate from Pelt. Sure, there’s plenty of long bell and gong tones, but there’s also some guitar and amp activity that’ll singe your whiskers with sheer crackle action. �(dustedmagazine.tumblr.com/post/726637654177906688/dust-volume-nine-number-nine (https://dustedmagazine.tumblr.com/post/726637654177906688/dust-volume-nine-number-nine))��Meyer echoes Byron Coley's previously reported observations:�There is a crackling, noise energy curtain surrounding much of the playing here...a certain rockist element lurking inside Spiral Joy Band's music (which supplanted the overt hayseed elements of their original iteration) and the direction and manner of their clangor here has the weight of rock rather than something more ephemeral. [...] The drones are often created with a searing metallic edge, and their spiky protuberances brook no guff. If that ain't rock, at least attitudinally, I'll eat your fu***ng hat.��We are, of course ever grateful for the words of these two esteemed fellows. ��We would likew
ise, though, love to hear the words of our supporters, so come along now, feel it on your own--get your copy or bundled copy!��Much love,�SJB

Spiral Joy Band The music plays on through the end of the most disastrous summer in living memory, with Maui on fire and Arizona broiled beneath a heat dome and Vermont swept away in a 100- maybe...

05/08/2023

Hot off the presses, we are psyched to announce Spiral Joy Band’s new release on Feeding Tube Records: Elvehjem.

Available now here:

https://spiraljoyband.bandcamp.com/album/elvehjem

Get it before Bandcamp Friday ends!

Of the release, Byron Coley writes:
"Recorded in Madison Wisconsin a year after In The River, the latest record from this amazing trio (Troy Schafer, Patrick Best, Mikel Dimmick) breaks a bit with Spiral Joy's drone-dominant tradition. There is a crackling, noise energy curtain surrounding much of the playing here that makes me remember the sound of the Richmond VA trio, Pelt, from whom Spiral Joy Band draw specific inspiration (as well as two members.)

The listed instruments are bowed gong, gong, bowed bowls, electric guitar, bowed materials amplified & acoustic, mouthpiece and effects, modified zither. So yeah, there is still a patchwork of drones at the heart of Elvehjem, but there is little in the way of uninterrupted flow. The music on this one is a cascade of sound events with a feel almost more in line with the less antic inventions of Gruppo Di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza than anything inside the “rock” realm.

But there has often been a certain rockist element lurking inside Spiral Joy Band's music (which supplanted the overt hayseed elements of their original iteration) and the direction and manner of their clangor here has the weight of rock rather than something more ephemeral. The two sides are presented as discreet pieces -- “Shore” and “Shine” -- but they run together seamlessly, both displaying surface pocks and tremors with a pride usually reserved for magic tricks. The drones are often created with a searing metallic edge, and their spiky protuberances brook no guff. If that ain't rock, at least attitudinally, I'll eat your fu***ng hat.

In the meantime, Elvehjem, is a stone gas to listen to."

2 track album

27/01/2023

https://feedingtuberecords.com/releases/in-the-river/

Spiral Joy Band - In The River LP Edition of 440. Available on bandcamp Release Date – January 27th, 2023 – Pre-order available – Spiral Joy Band are one of the descendents of Richmond VA’s legendary musical juggernaut, Pelt. Active and mutating for nearly 20 years, the iteration of the Spir...

05/12/2022

Spiral Joy Band's newest album, In the River on Feeding Tube Records is now available for preorder (and shipping while supplies last):
https://spiraljoyband.bandcamp.com/album/in-the-river

Byron Coley has offered some kind words about how the album may in fact make you "feel better." Though biased, we agree wholeheartedly:

"Spiral Joy Band are one of the descendants of Richmond VA's legendary musical juggernaut, Pelt. Active and mutating for nearly 20 years, the iteration of the Spiral Joy Band who recorded this session in Madison Wisconsin in 2011 was a trio. Troy Schafer, Patrick Best and Mikel Dimmick play an array of instruments -- violin, viola, harmonium -- to produce lush tapestries of the multiphonic drones for which they are known.

I remember Pelt getting called “The Hillbilly Theatre of Eternal Music” at the '98 Terrastock Festival in San Francisco. And indeed, that was a definite part of Pelt's sound at that point in their evolution. But since 2004, Spiral Joy Band have focused on and explored that particular niche with firm resolve. All versions of the group have reveled in the use of acoustic instruments to create tones to saturate the air with colors, while avoiding the technical shortcuts offered by electronics.

The two sidelong pieces on In the River, reportedly inspired by Ka Baird (from Spires That in the Sunset Rise) and the Minneapolis string genius, Paul Metzger, are open-ended musical discussions about the existence of infinity, and how portions of infinite space might be corralled in ways that suggest continuously expanding horizons.

Both the pieces are exquisite and function equally well as Furniture Music (as defined by Eric Satie) or active meditation fields, unveiling endless spools of drone in which a listener can wallow deeply. The closer you listen, the more you'll be able to hear. But even as a “mere” soundtrack to the day, In the River offers the kind of textural beauty that makes everything feel better.

Spiral Joy Band are sonic explorers dedicated to very specific corner of the universe, but it's one that contains the sort of magical powers we all need more than ever. If I were a doctor I'd prescribe a daily dose of their music as an antidote to the rigors of reality as we know it. As Pink Floyd once suggested, “Take Up Thy Stethoscope and Walk.”

Words to live by, eh?"

-Byron Coley

3 track album

04/11/2022

Now released into the world! In the River, on .
We have a limited number of copies available ahead of the January 2023 release date. Available at our Bandcamp site:

3 track album

18/04/2022

Coming imminently into the world on April 22 from the gracious hands of . A limited edition of 30, so don't sleep on this one!
Spiral Joy Band
Album : Open Circle
Side A : The Closed Circle Devours Itself
Side B : The Open Circle Spirals Free

Recorded one summer Madison, Wisconsin day in August, 2009 in the basement

Patrick W. Best: Bowed Guitar
Mikel Dimmick: Sruti, gong
Troy Schafer: Electronics

Copyright Ark Majesties 2022

07/03/2022

Today, I want to call your attention to our contribution to an outstanding compilation put out by Silent Records: Dark Inidicator III
silentrecords.bandcamp.com/album/dark-indicator-3-a-collection-of-guitar-string-drones

Our contribution-"Man is Deaf, The Joy is Immutable"- is a 20 minute (well, 19:59 min) ecstatic workout from one of our live performances in Madison, WI at Project Lodge some years ago. Far from dwindling with age, the sonics have only grown deeper and more evocative, both punishing and, well, joyful, as one might expect. So, help keep the dark drone alive and stop in and drop 8$ at Silent.

10 track album

15/12/2021

Psyched Pelt is included in Aquarium Drunkard's year end best of. Stellar company all around:
https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2021/12/13/aquarium-drunkard-2021-year-in-review/

Aquarium Drunkard presents our annual Year in Review, an unranked sprawl of our favorite music from 2021.