Kudos to me for finally finding one of the original numbered CDRs of this album, after years of giving up on trying to collect all the cool early Sunburned Hand Of The Man stuff. Yes, I really am that great. Well, no I’m not. But someone sold all their original CDRs to a local store and I was able to procure just about every one of them on the cheap.
Magnetic Drugs is a wonderful and tight collection of aural goodies that will either demand your attention or bore you to tears, depending on your patience for experimental music. Do not be turned off by the cacophony that is “The Overt Statuette,” this is about as intensely noisy as the band has ever sounded. “The Vendetta,” “Elix It” and “Colonel Manois’ Log” are some of the best tracks the band has ever recorded.
As I was listening to this trying to figure out how to describe the music, Nicci mentioned how she doesn’t like it when she hears something and imagines it to be music made especially for people on drugs to enjoy. So I tried to describe to her how I view music like that contained on Magnetic Drugs totally free, totally unrehearsed and unpretentious, these pieces are an attempt to capture the mood of the people creating the sounds at a particular moment in time. This is not music for stoners. I imagine stoners would have a field day listening to this, but I like to think SHOTM are above that. This music represents an organic process. There are moments that occur when you’re recording improvisations that could never be replicated in a million takes in a professional studio. Those moments might last anywhere from fifteen seconds to fifteen minutes inside of a longer stretch of music, but you know when you’re in that space, as it is occurring, that it is something magical. When everyone is locked in together, tight, thinking and playing as if they share a singular brain…it’s invigorating to behold something like that. Sunburned Hand Of The Man have been lucky enough to capture many, many moments like that. Even if a listener only truly marvels at one or two “songs” on one of an albums, the exercise is still worth it. Magnetic Man contains lots of those moments.
Unfortunately, Magnetic Drugs was only limited to 250 hand-numbered copies. It might still be available from online retailers who sell MP3s only, I have no way of knowing what every online music retailer “stocks” these days. Please enjoy!
Sunburned Hand Of The Man
Magnetic Drugs
MediaFire DL LInk
01. The Overt Statuette
02. Gabriel’s Packet
03. Haye’s Acre
04. The Vendetta
05. The Soft Hustle
06. Magnetic Drugs
07. Elix It
08. Sunrad’s Command
09. Colonel Manois’ Log
10. The Obvious Monument
