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Headdress (20th Anniversary Remaster)

by Sunburned Hand of the Man

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Remastered by Carl Saff from the original master sources, this 20th anniversary edition of "Headdress" sounds better than ever before. Artwork for this edition has also been recreated from original sources and expanded into a gatefold. Pressed on 160g black vinyl by Smashed Plastic in Chicago.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Headdress (20th Anniversary Remaster) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 2 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $25 USD or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Remastered by Carl Saff from the original master sources, this 20th anniversary edition of "Headdress" sounds better than ever before. Artwork for this edition has also been recreated from original sources and expanded into a gatefold. Pressed on 160g "clarity" clear vinyl by Smashed Plastic in Chicago. This is a small overage stash of a color was originally only available to folks who 2022 TLR subscribers.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Headdress (20th Anniversary Remaster) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 2 days
    5 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      $26 USD or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $8 USD  or more

     

  • Button/Pin/Patch + Digital Album

    An enamel pin with the circa 2000 Conrad Capistran Sunburned Hand of the Man logo that predates the ubiquitous Joshua Burkett logo? Yes and please! This slick pin has this tasty design printed in green and white on a 1.25" x .75" pin with single pinback. NO WAY OUT, right?

    Includes unlimited streaming of Headdress (20th Anniversary Remaster) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 4 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      $6 USD or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Remastered by Carl Saff from the original master sources, this 20th anniversary edition of "Headdress" sounds better than ever before. Artwork for this edition has also been recreated from original sources and expanded into a gatefold. Pressed on 160g "luxury" purple vinyl by Smashed Plastic in Chicago and limited to 650 copies.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Headdress (20th Anniversary Remaster) via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 2 days
    edition of 650  4 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      $26 USD or more 

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 130 Three Lobed Recordings releases available on Bandcamp and save 65%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Nimbus, When The Roses Come Again, A Day Behind The Deadline, Glass Band, Arc of Day, Come On, No Hashish, No Change Money, No Saki Saki, Almanac Behind, and 122 more. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      $347.55 USD or more (65% OFF)

     

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Shitless 04:09
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The Illness 04:44
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Headdress 03:17
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about

I’ll set the scene – we’re all passed out face-down in the lawn of the first Bush term, scratching our heads after 9/11 and wondering how much more dystopian it’s about to get. Ash hangs in the air as we march toward endless war, and the activities of the post-hippie, post-beat, post-punk, post-jazz, post-industrial, post-experimental bohemian underground flail against the avalanche with a mystic fire you can’t get your arms around, let alone bottle up for consumption. Jars of tears, rockets from another world. Sunburned Hand of the Man was a part of all that.

Sunburned appeared from time to time (occasionally at my invitation) in Western Massachusetts, a mongrel mob from Beantown, inscrutable in the extreme, their music governed by an internal logic, or by no logic, a bearded octopus with spider legs on stilts moonwalking with a limp. I’d see a set, then listen to a recording of it and swear that it was not the music I had witnessed earlier. As far as I can figure, the music actually had a mind of its own. And yet, in a shockingly conflicting truth, I knew in my heart that the music hadn’t changed – I had. These early encounters left me wondering why exactly these people were making this music, and very glad that they were.

They were driven by drums, bass, and guitars, and were obviously in love with groovy riffs, but to call them a rock band seemed even stupider than calling them a jam band. There were hand drums, shruti boxes, and plenty of moaning, but they were far from a hemp-bracelet-clad circle of evolutionary regressives spouting peace and love bullshit. There were weird electronics and some odd costumes once in a while, but it wasn’t anything resembling conceptual theater made for tight-assed, chin-stroking academic prudes. They chewed through every leash imaginable, and went bolting off into the wilds of a confounding and glorious wilderness.

"Headdress" was the group’s first proper vinyl release and, appropriately, clarified absolutely nothing. Now it’s back, nearly old enough to walk into a bar and get toasted on cheap piss, ready to confront and confuse and enrapture and enlighten all over again.

Like Sunburned itself, you catch "Headdress" already in process. The needle hits the groove and it roars in out of nowhere, an affirmative “OH YEAH” heralding its arrival. The tracks bleed into one another, and the stylistic shifts in the edits can be sudden, but there’s a magic in the editing that mirrors the magic of seeing a live set. It coheres and evaporates at its own pace. Elements emerge, converge, diverge, divulge, and obscure. A riff might erupt, daring the rest of the swarm to hang on it, to join it, or to swirl it. The vocals are summoned sermons, by turns muffled and clear.

The iteration of the band we get here is true old school Sunburned. Over the years an audacious rogue’s gallery of maniacs has passed through the ranks, and it can be easy to lose sight of the fact that at one time there was a relatively tight-knit gallery of maniacs fusing together and forging the group’s sound and spirit. Most notable among this crew is the recently-departed Marc Orleans, to whom this reissue is dedicated. His bombastically loud, searing guitar leads were a defining feature of this era, and this record presents startling examples of the profound, crazed ecstasy he was capable of conjuring.

This reissue offers a snapshot in time, neon time, mylar time, slipping time, dripping time, stepping hither and yon, feet growing and vanishing like time with each well-timed step. Freedom isn’t real, but it’s everywhere, and we’re fools if we don’t try to grasp it during the cosmic windows when it makes itself briefly available.

Now everybody—

-Matt Krefting, 2022-

credits

released October 28, 2022

Recorded live on May 15, 2001 at The Burren, Somerville, MA; September 12, 2001 at 7 Sherman Street, Charlestown, MA; and September 30, 2001 at the "Stone for Don Conka" on Amherst Common, Amherst, MA.

Performed by:

David Bohill - guitar, percussion, flute, keys, electronics
Conrad Capistran - keys, electronics
Chad Cooper - vocals, electronics, congas, percussion, winds
Phil Franklin - drums, trumpet, percussion
Critter Jordan - vocals, djembe, percussion
John Moloney - vocals, drums, percussion, organ, harp, horn
Marc Orleans - lead guitar
Rich Pontius - guitar
Richard Thomas - guitar, reeds, percussion
Robert Thomas - bass, drums, percussion

Mixed by Robert Thomas and John Moloney.
Remastered in 2022 by Carl Saff.
Originally released in 2002 by Records.
Front cover design by Chad Cooper.
Patchwork by Mother of Sonora Raven.
Back cover by Robert Thomas.
2022 redesign and layout by Sarah Gibbons.

Thanks to all in the orbit of Sunburned past, present and future.
Very Special Thanks to Ron Schneiderman and Cory Rayborn / Three Lobed Recordings.

R.I.P. to the incomparable Marc Orleans.

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Three Lobed Recordings Jamestown, North Carolina

Three Lobed Recordings is a boutique record label that specializes all flavors of psychedelia. The label was started in 2000 and is largely operated by cats.

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