Vancouver’s Lee Hutzulak and his friends have created a nearly indescribable collection of outrageously avant-garde folk-pop sound art. On “The Man With Flowering Hands,” Hutzulak – who wrote, recorded, and produced these tunes – has taken the urbane vocals/guitar idiom and turned it on its head. Skeletal fragments of songwriting DNA were pieced together to craft a fully-realized pastiche of dizzying grandeur. Homemade instruments, field recordings, pre-recorded melodies, foley effects and an army of like-minded souls with an endless supply of talent and enthusiasm were employed in an improvisational recording environment, such that the material could be manipulated and assembled into finished songs.
“The Man With the Flowering Hands” is a maddening array of sounds that somehow manages to congeal as the album unfolds. Impossible to digest in one sitting, these songs slowly worm their way into one’s consciousness. With each passing second, you’ll find yourself wondering just what Hutzulak and friends are going to do next. This is a rare and refreshing feeling to have in this time of recycled retromania; it’s great to hear something almost completely new for a change!
