Sunburned Hand Of The Man – Nimbus

Three Lobed

A product of the ever-shifting sands of the group and hot on the heels of VHF’s Hypnotape comes this prime spoken word smothering from those sunburnt folks over at Three Lobed.

The honey-dewed title track “Nimbus” hits the highs early on, a slow glittering regalia turning in your head. Sounds like John Moloney, but it’s a new recruit to the Sunburnt posse Peter Gizzi, a poet who dines on dilating descriptives, nudges the nuance of language in interesting ways, all wrapped in a coffee-stained authenticity. A wandering mind furnished in a soft ambulance-like modulated see-saw that keeps you connected, a dying battery finally working wordlessly out on a warm-swirled chorus. A beautifully realised track that got me falling over myself in ordering his book Fierce Elegy.

The beatnik bounty dips soon after in favour of the tongue-curling psychoactive elastic of “The Lollygagger”, slamming that familiar sunburnt furrow we’ve all come to love. All murmuring melody rhythmically roasted, lightly dusted in peppery drums. Shimmering on the traditional skewer of Phil Franklin‘s acoustic travels, gathering up the goods of “Ishkabibble Magoo” into a straight-cut twang that rolls your ear all John Denver-esque downed and super easy. Sets you up for “Brainticket”’s shape-shifting haze to hijack you, roller-skated in some impressive noodling as that repeated glam refrain dissolves into you like some melt-in-the mouth pastry.

Like a Bedouin sunset given lyrical flesh, “Lily Thin” is bloody lovely — an amalgamated cover from Moroccan singer Younes Megri’s “Leïli Twil / Ya M’Raya” 1973 original and a remix by those Sun City Girls. An exotically breezed sweetness leaking into another spoken word gem that I’ve been re-playing for an insane amount of time since first hearing. The second Peter Gizzi nugget entitled “Consider The Wound” that’s definitely one of Sunburned Hand’s most radiate displays to date, its slow deliberated contours rivering as his mutating labyrinths quietly ignite your head to a steady patternated instrumental lather. Atmospherically arrowed goodness of the highest order.

The flow is plentiful, subtly blurred, skipping songwards to suddenly sip from the Allen Ginsberg cup or sprinkling some instrumental magic into the mix. The type that’s shrink-wrapped into a classic smokey spiral of “Walker Talker” hypnotically knotting you up in its heady bouquet, to finally release you to the Matt Krefting written and read “Hilltop Garden Lament” that ends the LP. Its floating wordage starting out all vengeful, then moving into a dusty glow massaged by a slow ambling harmonic that dances itself round the room.

A fitting album end, but all isn’t finished, as you’re given a cheeky digital reward for your purchasing prowess; three very psychedelic extras that definitely more than hint at a possible direction of the next release.