Mikel Dimmick Spiral Joy Band: Pleasure is the Headlight
Very few groups – any? – have picked up on the blueprint laid down by the ‘classic’ Pelt line-up, where they took on the mantle of the Hillbilly Theatre Of Eternal Music, making overt - like no one outside of Henry Flynt - the common sonic properties shared by psychoactive minimalism, modern raga forms and classic American Primitive. Spiral Joy Band formed in the wake of Pelt, featuring both Mike Gangloff and Mikel Dimmik of that group alongside Amy Shea and Nathan Bowles and they posited a potentially more radical take on Pelt’s no-mind country blues, using very minimal- though profoundly amplified - gong and percussion suites in order to activate visions of the kind of blank American topography of mid-period NNCK, Harry Partch and Harry Bertoia. Pleasure Is The Headlight presents a deluxe, beautifully packaged double 180g LP in a run of 400 copies in custom gatefold jackets with letter pressed cover art and silk screened innards inspired by the Rev. A W Nix’s “Black Diamond Express To Hellâ€. Three sides of foggy, thunder tones, singing strings and hypnotic country reverie and a final side of oddities, including a live solo wind chime performance and a Taj Mahal Travellers-style beach performance. Excellent and by far the best release from this group to date.