Sunburned Hand of the Man

Sunburned fans should note that the band aren’t alone in the room for Fire Escape. Rather, this nine-track recording is actually a collaboration with Four Tet’s Kieran Hebden, who has "envisioned, produced, mixed and edited” the album, while also playing some piano and drum machine. Such credits may give the impression that Hebden decided to record Sunburned jamming and mix it all together after the band moved on, and that essentially is what this sounds like. Hebden’s contributions take this notoriously divergent batch of musicians who thrive on anarchic jams and glues it altogether with some minor embellishes in rhythm and melody. The results veer closer to the deconstructionist jazz side of the spectrum, with the broken funk of Ornette Coleman coming to mind. It’s a middle-of-the-road experimental record in which Hebden explores his fringes and Sunburned rein theirs in a bit.