With their latest release, A, Sunburned Hand Of The Man from the outer limits of Massachusetts seem intent on remaining as a moving target and show no sign of slowing up on their prolific output.
Their mammoth back catalogue exists on small imprints, CDRs and cassette and on most there is no obvious attempt to smooth down the rough edges.
Quite the reverse, in fact, the ragged randomness of their sound is a large part of their appeal.
The band are fully cognisant of the fact that what is praised as spontaneous artistry by some is dismissed as amateurish noodling by others and they don't care too much which camp you fall into.
Four Tet's Kieren Hebden gets it. Even though he has gone public over Sunburned deliberately cavalier attitude to production values, he is a massive fan of their music. This is his second infiltration into the Sunburned recording studio, the first being 2007's Fire Escape (Smalltown Supersound)
Hebden's fascination with Sunburned began, as it did for me, after reading David Keenan's 'Welcome to the New Weird America' article in the August 2003 edition of The Wire. This would have led him to them as well as to the countless offshoots of what has been documented as the free folk explosion, a loosely defined movement that thankfully shows no sign of running out of steam.
A is just the latest instalment in the ongoing saga and while Fire Escape was Hebden's cut and paste job of a perfect Sunburned album his electronica sound is much more to the fore here.
Nevertheless, the two longest tracks (Now Lift The Outer Finger and Loft At Sea) feature the slow building in quest of groove that is at the heart of Sunburned's best albums. Loft At Sea has the same freaky motorik of their classic Jaybird album even though the tribal glitch of Hebden widens the palette significantly.
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Aside from this, Action Figure has the dance beats you know and love from Four Tet's albums and on other tracks, the prominence of percussion calls to mind Hebden's albums with veteran drummer Steve Reid rather than earlier Sunburned releases..
Apollo Wind and the closing track (Alpha Beta Adam) are atmospheric electro-drones that you expect to build into something grander but end after two and half minutes. I also felt short chnaged by three very short tracks (The Return of a C, Anger Icon and Sticky Wicket) sound like off-cuts from some larger piece. With a total playing time under 35 minutes, I can't help feeling Hebden's editing was far too rigorous, not a criticism you would ever have expected to make of a Sunburned album.
All things considered, A may be a poor relation to Fire Escape but is still a relative I would happily invite to a camp fire party.
Full track listing :
1. The Return Of A & C (0:19)
2. Now Lift The Outer Finger (For Newcastle) (7:09)
3. Loft At Sea (7:51)
4. A Red Rag To A Bull (3:03)
5. Arp And Hammer (Apollo Wind) (2:32)
6. Chasm (The Books Of Ability) (3:04)
7. Anger Icon (0:39)
8. A Sticky Wicket (0:49)
9. Action Figure (4:01)
10. Radish Vs. Beet (1:09)
11. Apha, Beta, Adam (3:04)
A is initially released on vinyl only and includes a download card of the full album.
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