As of late 2023, there are at least eight images of the Kool-Aid Man scattered across Sunwatchers’ Bandcamp page. He’s an unlikely mascot for an anti-capitalist experimental rock band, but ever since he appeared on the cover of the group’s 2019 album Illegal Moves in full-on Braveheart regalia standing triumphant over a mutilated corpse of Uncle Sam, his presence within the band’s own cheeky branding has been ubiquitous. Naming their 2020 follow-up Oh Yeah? was a not so subtle nod in his direction. The group’s tongues are shoved firmly into their cheeks, and the blatant IP theft aligns with their anarchist-leaning politics. But the exuberant, barrier-breaking energy of their appropriated brand ambassador is mirrored in the unchecked jubilation at the heart of the band’s music.
Sunwatchers exist in a lineage of musicians and performers creating politically radical work that cherishes the spirit of invention and is charged with hopeful defiance. Like the Bread and Puppet Theater, they construct a homegrown spectacle that is viscerally entertaining; like the Art Ensemble of Chicago, they use jazz as the groundwater that feeds a holistic practice of playfully and provocatively challenging artistic norms. As an instrumental band, Sunwatchers convey all of this through sound alone, countering their triumphant melodies with blasts of saxophone skronk and the time-bending repetition of minimalism. Think of it as solidarity fuel: a jolt of revelry to replenish the spirit of those engaged in the daily struggle of existence and resistance.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Sunwatchers have been notably less prolific than over the previous half-decade. Music Is Victory Over Time is the quartet’s first album in over three years, and their approach has shifted in subtle ways. The valleys are now just as potent as the peaks, and the darkness at the margins is more apparent, if still largely kept at bay. The relatively understated “Foams” plays out like the first moments of the jam section of the Grateful Dead’s “Playing in the Band” expanded into a shimmering ebb and flow of electric guitar arpeggios. Closer “Song for the Gone” punctuates the album with a wistful tribute to lost friends that climaxes in a three-chord refrain—a rare retreat into traditional song form.
The group sounds most dialed in when they focus on a single musical phrase and push it to a breaking point. The opening melody to “World People” feels cribbed from a game show (or perhaps an ’80s Ornette Coleman record with Prime Time) until it begins to contract and expand simultaneously, a short arpeggiated phrase building in intensity until it explodes into a glorious two-chord blowout. The wide-eyed, flowing triplets played by saxophonist Jeff Tobias on “Tumulus” become full-cheeked bleats by the song’s end. It’s in listening to these shifting, evolving pieces that the album’s title begins to come into focus: While being swept up in the music, listening closely to the way it moves from points A to B to Q, the slippery, untamed flow of time seems dictated by the pliable swirl of sounds rather than the unflinching tick of the clock. Music Is Victory Over Time, like so much of the Sunwatchers catalog, creates the mindset in which revolutionary impulses and ideas can flourish—one driven by patience and passion in equal measure. Their music is a leaderless, collective shout of defiance, each element working in tandem to rethink how music moves and how it moves the listener.
