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Tea leaves, entrails, and stars. All ways to divine our place in the universe, pathways of instinct and angular interpretation through the empty question mark space of time. As inexact as these methods may be there's potency to expanding one's imagination, asking the questions without expectation of certainty, a supremely human exercise, the reaching out for the sake of reaching. Sunburned Hand Of The Man (SBHOTM) does this repeatedly in their work. T here are healthy pinches of ritual and spiritual release in their beautifully tattered clatter, a sod-scented mulch composed of juicily decaying bits of funk, world music, dyed-in-the-wool experimentation, and the occasional green twig of rock.
Secret In Disguise was originally a tour-only release recorded at "The Hideout one night in September 2003," with a low drum beat progression and elements of hemp-saturated Nyabinghi Rasta-ism that begins with Hans Christian Andersen and ultimately unfurls into something indescribably slinky. The Self-Titled album, according to legend, is a series of creative blasts liberated from their inner sanctum and is charged by more electricity than Secret, as if they'd found all those wire-rich keyboards from old Tangerine Dream album covers and used them despite the mildew and sparking gaps in the insulation.
Nothing happens quickly on either disc, except when it does. A trance isn't something one just switches on and off, but once arrived in dreamtime there's no knowing where you'll find yourself. You might hear echoplex whispers calling from deep woods or slithering electric guitar taking you off your feet, coils of shiny black and red blotting out the sun. Other spaces find haunted 78 players murmuring against war, tamboura howl codas, sax belly bursts, and tremulous platinum horns, visibly warped reasoning and an unholy amount of things thumping and tinkling with percussive abandon. The opener to the self-titled record sounds like "Papa Was A Rolling Stone" as interpreted by Tibetan Monks who'd never heard soul music before. Elsewhere in the folds David Crosby dances in an open field with Alice Coltrane. There's darkness in their music that's not dissimilar to heavy metal but there's none of the pseudo-Satanic posturing or stupid outfits (though the creepy "Owl Man" on the back of Secret has already flown into my subconscious, and not in a good way...).
I love a lot of things about SBHOTM--their DIY release style, more punk than most punks, hand-glued and lovingly uninformative; the scattershot nature of their muse; the grooves they unearth in the most unlikely places. Admittedly, they could probably use an editor, someone to trim just a bit of the warm-up segments so the real crystal shine emerges more readily. For my own part, I'm happy to take the ride because I'm a patient, active listener and little details fascinate me. Ultimately, what draws one into the Hand is the compelling sense that they don't really know where they're going either but every step is made with an unbridled sense of exploration--fearless, driven, inquisitive like some musical Australopithecus robustus, evolving along different lines than others, proud of their huge skulls, large teeth, and dorsal crests.
Dennis Cook
JamBase | California
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