SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN are a cheery band of New Weird America renegades from Boston Massachusetts. With fluctuating numbers and a steady shift in musical style the same basic collective has been making records and performing since 1996/97. Tonight we have eight performers tackling two pieces with a shifting set of instruments, props, masks, electronic equipment and projections. We're in the upstairs room of a scruffy pub and pretensions are simply not possible, even if they were wanted. The dressing up box, the wiring, the back-stage chat, the moistening of oboe reeds – it’s all up front for the audience to share. We even do some jostling to see how much of the precious floor space the band gets to take up. (the place is full to bursting of course). It's very like a 1960s New York coffee house folk club. Without the tables.
The band comprises two guitarists, one bass player, two sound processing persons and three shifting instrumentalists with voices coming from all over. Musically we have a gumbo/voodoo pulse of bass riffs with drums and guitars and a psychedelic orchestra of other noises from electronic and analogue sources. Incantations, mantras, shakers, beaters, ecstatic wailing and gestures of all kinds create a surreal pageant of religious and cultural ritual. The power is immense, and the incongruity of the context never makes the slightest difference. Yes, we can see that Jon Maloney has a yellow Comets on Fire t shirt and baggy-arsed jeans. But his horse's head is so startled and so real that he does become an undead horse pounding drums, playing clarinet and howling. We do believe. And the rubber-faced zombie on a seven-foot stick with its grey shroud of nylon and its felt-pen blood is disturbingly macabre.
As the set rolls on and the inspiration and improvisation take hold, individual vocalists become possessed. They shake, rock, tremble and moan like shamans. They shout or sing in tongues. The waves of music and electronic noise swirl and crash around the central and recognisable rock of that bass line and drumming. It wasn't like this on holiday, mother. I recall youthful experiments with LSD and remember (again) that music this strong makes acid redundant. It really isn’t difficult to give yourself up to this mystic battering and enter a world of dreams and new perceptions. When I woke up on the morning after, I was not surprised that my dreams had been more vivid than usual. This music works into your psyche and sets things free when you thought they were dead.
If THE SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN had evil plans, they could have taken a lot of people into bad territory by now. Thank whatever God you can muster, their mission seems to be catharsis, renewal and joy. And they're lovely people with it.
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Matthew Bower and Marcia Bassett, of Leeds and New York respectively are sonic itinerants on a mission of hope. THE HOTOTOGISU is their collaborative musical venture. A species of Japanese songbird, the hototogisu is a traditional harbinger of summer in Japan. It is said that geishas are hototogisu in human form. This all helps, so take note.
Marcia has a tasselled rug to kneel on, and Matthew stands (until he lies down to signal the end of the set) usually facing the screen at the back of the performance area. Matthew plays with a guitar, some FX and an amplifier, reeling out skeins of feedback and shovelling pulses of rushing noise. Marcia has two ebows, a small silver bowl and a chopstick. With these she coaxes a rise and fall of singing, chanting, wailing and roaring from her white electric guitar which lies permanently on its back on the floor. Sometimes she puts a mic into her mouth and tells secrets to the Gods.
The music and the beautiful ripples of light behind THE HOTOTOGISU are oceanic, serene and uplifting. The noise could be industrial machinery, it could be the tidal wave from hell. But in the ambience of this room, with clouds of incense and two very charming people in charge it’s just lovely. I don't want it to stop.
The wonderful evening had started with Leeds' renowned VIBRACATHEDRAL ORCHESTRA, whose single improvisation ululates through half an hour of delicate drone notes and melodic ripples. The structure is open, with surges of tempo or volume as the members of the band are moved this way or that. Only a sequence of instruments (and therefore tones) has already been decided – as much a practical as a musical decision, so that as a saxophone is put down, an Indian double reed instruments can be picked up. Like SUNBURNED HAND OF THE MAN, this stuff has been mellowed and perfected over a long period of recording and performing together and the authoritative result is utterly convincing and deeply satisfying. Tonight's show is full of peace and calm, a steadying influence before the storms to follow.
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