Sunburned Hand of the Man - Headdress
(Records)
Indulge your imagination for a moment and envision a long dirt road leading up to a patch of forest. You hear the distinct sound of revelry emanating from the distant wooded area as you cautiously approach on foot. This deciduous domain looks dark and mysterious from afar, but you can nearly decipher the noises as you begin wandering into the woods. Maybe you see a large fire torching the darkness while several bodies dance around the considerable blaze, casting enormous joyous shadows against the sullen timber residents. Perhaps you notice a gathering of musicians seated on logs or the forest floor, hunched over themselves as they coax every manner of known and unknown music from their instruments of choice. Volumes and tempos ebb and flow like the tides, cacophonous order giving way to controlled chaos just as surely as the moon pushes the water ashore. And above the din of drums, bongos, guitars, keyboards, flutes, whistles, kitchenware, bells, chimes, saxophone, maracas, tambourine, chants, and sermons, all swirling and coalescing like some ancient primordial elixir promised to unleash unclean spirits from the depths of an open mind, over this undulating uproar you can almost hear yourself asking yourself incredulously, "Did I just see a bunny hugging a possum, or was that a tree stump that just winked at me?"
The Sunburned Hand of the Man is actually a collective of musicians from Massachusetts who could very well be the progenitors of an excitingly new yet old style of musical expression. If there is a recipe to this stone soup, the key ingredients are group improvisation and understanding the sundry dynamics of such a cumbersome undertaking. Although it may seem tempting to gather a dozen of your closest friends and slap them behind a microphone before pressing the record button, there is so much more going on here than simply tossing the pasta al dente against a wall and waiting to see what sticks. These players not only know what and when to play, but also when to listen to their band mates, leaving swaths of silence to be filled by the echoing silence while taking subtle performance cues from the ever-evolving language of artistic articulation. They tend to forage through the collective subconscious for a suitable groove and then openly exploit it until attention wanders away, guiding the others along with it to a new place altogether. Nowhere is this better illustrated than with their stunning debut LP, the incomparable Headdress.
Comprised of nine tracks that seem to constitute merely the climaxes or beginnings of several long jams, Headdress serves as a marvelous introduction to the world of the Sunburned Hand of the Man. While live experiences usually feature one long extended suite stuffed to the gills with patterns and changes, this LP serves up bite-sized morsels of some choice moments so as to either whet the palate of the uninitiated or satisfy the insatiable desire of the rabid fan. Anchoring each venture is sturdy bass work, providing both a rhythmic foundation and a melodic base (pun unintended) from which to proceed. Once the tone is firmly established, guitars may enter the fray, peppering the piece with staccato picks or sweeping arpeggios. As momentum builds, drums fluidly enter the mix, whether in the form of a kit or hand drums or any variation of percussive output that you can summon. From there, just about anything can and will happen, including but not limited to feedback, drones, white noise, or the unmistakable howls of the Reverend John Moloney, summoning greater heights from the group with emphatic pleas and impassioned words of mystic wisdom.
The opening tune fades in to present the listener with an ambling bass line that supports a clean guitar picking out accompanying notes as the drums maintain a steady shuffle. This gives way to a keyboard drone with sustained mantras being sung on top, joined briefly by a barking dog before steadily gaining momentum as more members of the collective contribute vocally to the incantation. Another crossfade brings us to a bass throb over which two guitars add spacey dips and dives, shifting as the drummer adds more then less before disappearing into the ether. The next song proves to be one of the most sinister yet, as a single note bottom is confronted with sax wails and ringing guitar tones that conjure tension and,
the first half of the record wraps up with a cut whose beginning is dominated by approaching sirens as guitar solos duel over the slow, chill groove. The flipside opens with a synth drone spoken intro complete with flute and a chorus of aums before blending with what is essentially the longest single jam on the whole record. Nearly nine minutes of calculated crescendo are highlighted by a repeating keyboard loop and changing bass work which provides the guitarists with plenty of room to move around before the drums lift the group into a headier and heavier psych cycle that defies reason by continuing to palpably intensify. As this fades away, an offbeat funk walk gathers a clicking woodblock and spacey noises under the deep thump of big drums and reverberating effects. The album closes with a piece containing mainly percussion toys and a few processed vocals over the ensuing ramble before drifting off into the expanses of the mind.
Describing the unique and affecting sounds on this record is a task better suited to the individual listener, as each person will surely be drawn to different tones and aspects of the same songs, finding elements within the music to appreciate that may be overlooked by any other listener. This band takes group improvisation to levels that havent been meaningfully touched upon since contemporary jazz became a parody of itself. If youre looking for a record to change your mind about the state of music today, please make it this one.
|
