Earlier this year, Sunburned Hand of the Man hatched a bright idea. After eight years of making music at a near-compulsive clip, the band finally thought to put its newest collection, Rare Wood, on CD and give it proper distribution. Prior to that, their releases were issued only as hand-packaged CD-Rs or on LP, leaving fans to sift through record fairs and shakedown exotic music vendors for copies. But the response to Rare Wood was evidently enthusiastic enough to warrant a second CD release: a reissue of 2003's The Trickle Down Theory of Lord Knows What.
Some would argue that part of Sunburned Hand's appeal lies in their scarcity but with music this impenetrable, they're not gonna crossover no matter how hard they try. If the band doesn't evoke enough of a socially aloof, politically apathetic vibe in their music, the title of this album is a reference to the famously-misleading Reagan-era economic doctrine, and resembles the caustic appellation the band gave its charter release, Shit Spangled Banner. But I'd be surprised if Sunburned Hand spent their Sunday mornings flipping through the Op-Ed section of the Times; after all this is a band whose leader, Jon Moloney, told me its music sounded best after imbibing strange drug cocktails.
But one need not be too wrecked to enjoy Trickle Down. It's a more engrossing beast than its predecessor. It dominates any environment in which it's played, coaxing the listener into a trance-like state through its use of endlessly repetitive phrases, distant and heavily reverbed vocals, and sustained textures. Much of Sunburned's music is like this but whereas previous releases such as Headdress are more blissed out, Trickle Down is darker and more meditative. The opening track, "Spell it Out", is even propelled by unintelligible, Shaman-esque chanting. Appropriately enough for this unalloyed collection of left-as-is jams, the track cuts off abruptly just as its lumbering central rhythm seems to be picking up. Five of the record's tracks end with a curt clip followed by a snippet of a seemingly unrelated bit of music.
"Show of Hands" is the album's effulgent anomaly, a track on which the ambience is turned down and one can actually hear plaintive acoustic and electric guitar dabbles poking through the mix. From the warm and fuzzy but distant guitar sound to the scattered vocal ruminations, Trickle Down is conspicuously lo-fi, even by Sunburned Hand standards. We're talking one or two mics here, tops, but the poor quality only enhances the album's immersive, otherworldly aura.
"The Easy Ease" and "Always Correct" are the album's shortest and quietest tracks. They're also the least interesting. The former does without rhythm, relying instead on warped wormhole drones and occasional flashes of cymbal; the latter is basically a drum circle. The songs aren't bad, merely soporific, and only inhibit the flow of the album insofar as they might cause the listener to black out.
But whatever Sunburned Hand lack in consistency they sure know how to make up for with superb finales. On the somewhat disappointing Rare Wood, the band saved grace with the fantastic "Gyp Hawkin'", a verdant, synth-spotted gem that trod through 10 minutes of wayward improvising without losing its mystic groove. Here, the closer again provides the strongest number. "Rivershine" siphons the piecemeal drone-and-moan of the previous four tracks into a momentous build-up that goes up, up, and away, tearing through each layer of the atmosphere in a torrid ascent to stellar calm. Once the band break through, it's a slow, steady drift, Earth in the rearview along with all the politics and formalities they never cared much for anyway.
