Before digging into Illegal Moves, the third LP from explosive New York quartet Sunwatchers, you first have to deal with its cover. The image is so bracing, it will probably stay with you the entire time you listen to Illegal Moves. In Scott Lenhardt’s garish, Mad Magazine-style drawing, a demented Kool-Aid Man stands over the bloodied body of Uncle Sam. A crowd of characters—from Margaret Thatcher and Ronald McDonald to Sunwatchers themselves—looks on in horror or glee.
But what does a brash political cartoon have to do with Sunwatchers’ boisterous instrumental meld of jazz, psych, and prog? The connection is partly visceral: Like the cover, Sunwatchers songs are loud and bold, spilling their ecstatic sounds into a euphoric blare. Take the winding “Psychic Driving,” which warms up noisily before exploding into a delirious swirl of riffs and honks. Though not devoid of subtlety, Illegal Moves is mostly about that kind of collective energy and momentum. But Sunwatchers have always had strong political stances, too. Their albums usually include a manifesto—“Sunwatchers stand in solidarity with the dispossessed, impoverished, and embattled people of the world”—and their proceeds benefit prison abolition. As guitarist Jim McHugh once put it, “...to actually become the hammer that falls on capitalism is our goal.”
In that sense, Illegal Moves recalls a cultural heyday in the 1960s and 1970s, when raucous instrumental sounds, particularly the free jazz that Archie Shepp called “Fire Music,” were key to a sociopolitical groundswell that sought uprising through artistic engagement. (Sunwatchers took their name from a song by one of the most boundary-pushing artists of the time, Albert Ayler.) But Sunwatchers’ music isn’t exactly a treatise; it’s as rough and primal as it is aware. Still, a historical strain of rebellion radiates through Illegal Moves’ best moments, and they’re hell-bent on carrying it forward. That goal now feels more urgent and purposeful than ever before.
Sunwatchers’ compositional approach is pretty simple: Pick a melodic figure to repeat, then surround it with a fervent swirl of sound. On catchy jams like the triumphant “New Dad Blues” and the high-velocity “Beautiful Crystals,” the quartet picks out a hummable hook and blasts it with rising rhythm, sprinting guitars, and the triumphant urgency of Jeff Tobias’ horns and keyboards. In the process, basic songs become hectic sprints, with dizzying amounts of sound splattered along the way. During a cover of Alice Coltrane’s “Ptah, the El Daoud,” Sunwatchers honor the original’s thoughtfulness while giving it a delirious sensibility.
Honoring musical ancestors is a Sunwatchers specialty. Last year, in perhaps the most straightforward example of their political leanings yet, they teamed with Eugene Chadbourne for an album featuring covers of the politically charged trio Minutemen. But Illegal Moves is just as powerful a statement about the urgency of the times and the reactions we should all be having, because being entertained doesn’t have to mean being disengaged. That Sunwatchers make their calls to arms sound so fun doesn’t diminish that power—in fact, it just might be the most important part.
