Another month, another two Sunburned Hand Of The Man releases.  Or at least collaborations.  Finnish “psych-kraut” pioneers and kindred spirits Circle join hands with them for The Blaze Game, while Kieran Hebden opts to put the safety of a pane of glass between him and them as he takes to the Teo Macero seat on Fire Escape.

My initial impression was that Hebden would seek to curtail SHOTM’s wild excesses, channelling them in a beatward direction; I expected more tracks like “The Parakeet Beat” with its M’Boom style percussive stomp.  However when I heard the rubbery funk of “Nice Butterfly Mask” being crudely curtailed by the sound of a man attacking an elephant with a garden strimmer I knew it wasn’t going to be that straightforward.  Indeed, half of the album is given up for an “Aumgn” style meandering soundscape; fifteen minutes of childlike piano, grunting, tuneless whistling and rattling, banging and scraping entitled “The Wind Has Ears”(hmmm, it is probably a fair bit better than I’ve just made it sound).  Available now from Boomkat.

The unimpeachable source that is Wikipedia makes this the sixth album Circle have been involved is in the last two years, and while their quality control has been on duty/off duty/on duty/off duty in fine French farmer style (Miljard and Tower are brilliant, Katapult and Panic…well, lets just say that they have their moments), the thought of this collaboration intrigued me greatly.  Thankfully, it is the Can-worshipping Circle of Tower who have turned up to jam with SHOTM, lending their hallucinatory percussiveness to their American chums’ evil weirdness.  After the spacious opener “Majava” the album catches alight with the incendiary build of “Heinahelvu” / “Vuoren Valloitus”, guitars piled up like bonfire wood.  “Yksi Hirvi, Miljoona Metsastaaja” may be the best thing either band have been involved with, sparking enthusiastically from Neu! timber.  Perhaps inevitably, I am compelled to say that The Blaze Game is grate.  Buy it from Conspiracy Records.