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SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN
This disc reissues a live LP from Sunburned Hand of the Man that wasoriginally released in 2003 in a small edition that was immediatelysnatched up by collectors. It is part of a trio of digital reissues oflimited live LPs by the Wabana label (the other two are from AcidMothers Temple and Wolf Eyes), all of which come packaged in genericpurple digipacks with a skull on the back and a clear sticker on thefront.
Wabana
I'm not exactly sure why Wabana decided to forgo reproducing theoriginal sleeve artwork and liner notes, but I suppose it's the musicthat matters most, and all three of these discs reissue highly soughtafter titles, so it's hard to complain. This untitled live album bySunburned is only one out of a veritable storm of limited CDs, LPs,CD-Rs, DVD-Rs and other ephemora released by the ensemble, all ofwhich, if I'm not mistaken, are recorded live. I confess that I'm noteven close to having heard everything, but I can say withoutreservation that this is one of the best out of the handful that I haveheard. It's far better and more focused than meandering, shambolicaffairs like Headdress and Magnetic Drugs, more on a par with the fiery intensity of my favorite SBHOTM album Jaybird.Because all Sunburned music is the product of improvisation andspontaneity—a free jazz ensemble that plays on the collective memory ofwhite jam-band psychedelia rather than black blues—their performancesand albums are hit or miss. It is precisely this air of risk andunpredictability that I suspect has won the band such a devoted cultfollowing, and made them the darlings of The Wire's criticalintelligentsia. Indeed, it can be satisfying to hear a mess thisunstructured, aimless and chaotic gradually coalesce into coherence, asthe ensemble locates a hypnotic groove and chases it to its naturalconclusion. As usual, this recording is not a crystalline example ofcrispness and fidelity, and there is a lot of the reverb, distortionand room sound that have become de rigeur for Sunburned recordings.This seems to be an intentional part of the Sunburned aesthetic,however, and it adds another level of interest to the music itself,which might not have the same subterranean atmosphere of vague menacewithout it. The first of the four untitled tracks on the album takes aqueue from Agartha-era Miles Davis, with an overdrivenKraut-funk bassline forming the backbone for searing horn bleats anddusty clouds of fuzz guitar. The second track is an extended meditationon war, in the general tradition of Sun Ra's "Nuclear War," with thelead vocalist repeatedly shouting the key three-letter word as the restof the ensemble form a complex web of echoplexed tribal drumming,flutes and weaving saxophone. The fourth and final track contains over18 minutes of some of SBHOTM's oddest music yet, a series of twitchy,nervously sexual conversations between voice and brass, drums anddrone. Sunburned seem to hint at the kind of high magickal ritualachieved by Can's "Aumgn," but there is a seething undercurrent ofapocalyptic dread that keeps things from getting too blissed out, justin case you might have been lulled into the mistaken notion thatSunburned Hand of the Man are peaceful hippies, instead of the hardcorethugs they really are.
Wabana
I'm not exactly sure why Wabana decided to forgo reproducing theoriginal sleeve artwork and liner notes, but I suppose it's the musicthat matters most, and all three of these discs reissue highly soughtafter titles, so it's hard to complain. This untitled live album bySunburned is only one out of a veritable storm of limited CDs, LPs,CD-Rs, DVD-Rs and other ephemora released by the ensemble, all ofwhich, if I'm not mistaken, are recorded live. I confess that I'm noteven close to having heard everything, but I can say withoutreservation that this is one of the best out of the handful that I haveheard. It's far better and more focused than meandering, shambolicaffairs like Headdress and Magnetic Drugs, more on a par with the fiery intensity of my favorite SBHOTM album Jaybird.Because all Sunburned music is the product of improvisation andspontaneity—a free jazz ensemble that plays on the collective memory ofwhite jam-band psychedelia rather than black blues—their performancesand albums are hit or miss. It is precisely this air of risk andunpredictability that I suspect has won the band such a devoted cultfollowing, and made them the darlings of The Wire's criticalintelligentsia. Indeed, it can be satisfying to hear a mess thisunstructured, aimless and chaotic gradually coalesce into coherence, asthe ensemble locates a hypnotic groove and chases it to its naturalconclusion. As usual, this recording is not a crystalline example ofcrispness and fidelity, and there is a lot of the reverb, distortionand room sound that have become de rigeur for Sunburned recordings.This seems to be an intentional part of the Sunburned aesthetic,however, and it adds another level of interest to the music itself,which might not have the same subterranean atmosphere of vague menacewithout it. The first of the four untitled tracks on the album takes aqueue from Agartha-era Miles Davis, with an overdrivenKraut-funk bassline forming the backbone for searing horn bleats anddusty clouds of fuzz guitar. The second track is an extended meditationon war, in the general tradition of Sun Ra's "Nuclear War," with thelead vocalist repeatedly shouting the key three-letter word as the restof the ensemble form a complex web of echoplexed tribal drumming,flutes and weaving saxophone. The fourth and final track contains over18 minutes of some of SBHOTM's oddest music yet, a series of twitchy,nervously sexual conversations between voice and brass, drums anddrone. Sunburned seem to hint at the kind of high magickal ritualachieved by Can's "Aumgn," but there is a seething undercurrent ofapocalyptic dread that keeps things from getting too blissed out, justin case you might have been lulled into the mistaken notion thatSunburned Hand of the Man are peaceful hippies, instead of the hardcorethugs they really are.
