Wake of the Dying Sun King

“Wake of the Dying Sun King“ is the second full length of epic meditative drone from this southwest VA collective. Like Pelt (with which it shares several members), Spiral Joy Band uses mostly acoustic instruments to create slow building pieces rich with human detail. The steady rolling of multiple Tibetan bowls, bowed and struck gongs, hypnotic fiddle, sruti box, and other instruments are recorded live in continuous performances that frequently stretch beyond an hour per piece. The performance aspect is key to SJB’s aura – the variations in tone, approach, force, etc with which each tone is played and the clear, open recording (mostly in Blacksburg’s Glade Baptist Church) highlight the subtleties of the music. “Wake” is a much more percussive set of music than SJB’s previous “Lullabies for Jeff Dean” CD (vhf#94), with Nathan Bowles’ expert percussion lending a lot more clang to the mix.