| Format: | LP |
| Availability: | In stock |
LPTLR133
18/06/2021
Pick A Day to Die' is the first proper studio album from Sunburned Hand of the Man in 10 years (A, Ecstatic Peace!). You would be forgiven if you had forgotten in the interim but while Sunburned is fully committed to vast, ritualistic summonings, they were perhaps uniquely capable of channeling that cosmic funk. There's a throb and a groove to the music that made it as much body music as head music. This is 'free your ass' weirdness that chugs and bounces. It makes us want to get out of our heads where we've all been trapped these past months and drive on the freeway or bop down the street. Pick A Die to Die. Sure, but definitely not today. The album marks a resurfacing of one of the great underheralded psych outfits to roam over the past two plus decades. Join TLR in the cult of Sunburned.
Sunburned Hand of the Man might be the last of the great American free rock collectives. There was a time, not long ago, when every region of this republic could boast of its own troupe of seekers thrumming at the frequency of the illuminated world. There was Pelt in the south and Jackie-O Motherfucker in the Pacific northwest, No-Neck Blues Band in New York and Jewelled Antler out in the Bay Area. And up in the New England wilds, there was The Sunburned Hand of the Man. It was a glorious time to be a weirdo, even amidst the smoldering wreck of the George W. Bush administration. While the pale white hipsters of the New York rock scene were cutting the canon of American music to a thin rail of pre-approved bands and albums, the amorphous free rock tribes were expanding it. It was all in there. A veritable head music awakening. Loft jazz and European free improv, Xpressway and Takoma, Jandek and Elizabeth Cotton, the Taj Mahal Travelers and the Grateful goddamn Dead. David Keenan of The Wire memorably called it the New Weird America. It felt to me like the mystical democracy of Walt Whitman. It sprawled like the continent and massed like the seas. It produced some of the most singularly thrilling performances that I ever had the privilege of witnessing. Most of those groups have since gone dormant—disbanded entirely or decomposed into smaller units. But the Sunburned Hand of the Man remains.
When Sunburned settled on Pick A Day to Die as the album’s title, I imagine it sounded more like a cool-ass James Bond movie than a grim memento mori for a plague-stricken nation. But here we are. Assembled from recently revisited recording sessions from between 2007 and 2017, Pick A Day to Die captures the full range of Sunburned’s sonic jive. The opener “Dropped a Rock” situates lovely acoustic guitar within a vast spaciousness, even as knocks and creaks of percussion and the whine of electronics suggest some menace just beyond the frame. The tension is relieved by the motorik rip of the killer title track. “Let’s feel the midnight” commences a Beefheart-esque rant about jet black leather diapers and eight-piece chicken dinners. The greasy cycle-delica of “Pick a Day to Die” is a good reminder that Sunburned always rocked harder and, if they felt like it, nastier than their compatriots in the early aughts underground. Nonsensical barks to “Taste the campfire!” feel like Iggy taunting the bikers on Metallic K.O. And, indeed, after the space disco nitrous hit of “Flex,” they are back at it. The tight “Black Lights” is more rumble music. The demented odyssey “Initials” dominates the second side, laying malfunctioning computer vocals over a serpentine guitar line. The savage album closer “Prix Fixe” is an aborted hardcore number that slowly gives way to desert rock blowout. The legendary J Mascis lends his inimitable lead to some “Maggot Brain”-like acid rock ascendance.
The thing that one has to remember about Sunburned is that while they were no less committed to ritualistic summonings than their siblings in the American free rock underground, they were perhaps uniquely capable of channeling cosmic funk. There’s a groove to Sunburned’s music that made it as much body music as head music. This is “free your ass” weirdness that chugs and bounces. It makes us want to get out of our heads where we’ve all been trapped these past months and drive on the freeway or bop down the street or loaf like Whitman in the stoned sun. Pick A Day to Die. Sure, but definitely not today.
-Brent S. Sirota
