Junkboy – ‘Chase the Knucker’ from ‘Littoral States’

On their album ‘Littoral States’, brothers Mike and Rich Hanscomb navigate coastal threads from the Bognor Regis of their father’s birth, through Worthing, Brighton, Newhaven and Seaford. Field recordings provide subtle textural backdrops to songs that inhabit a place where ancient superstitious myth and modern progressive thought meander around each other, trading occasional fleeting embraces of mutual attraction. Long term Junkboy collaborators Will Calderbank, Becca Wright, Marcus Hamblett and Owen Gillham provide cello, violins, trumpets, banjo and EBow to colour in the songs, whilst vocalist Hannah Lewis provides an occasional Sandy Denny ingredient to proceedings. The allusion to Fairport Convention is not unintentional of course, for ‘Littoral States’ is certainly a record that places itself on the arc where Folk music is given a smooch of something altogether peculiar and reveals itself to be magically Other. On ‘Sea Captain’ Lewis’ voice follows a fairly traditional folk narrative, but on the terrific ‘Chase The Knucker’ (a legendary Sussex water dragon, I’m told) and ‘Witch Of The Watery Depths’ she dissolves mostly to a kind of abstract, restrained jazz improvisation with a Liz Fraser trembulation. It would have been easy to utilise this Siren song at more points throughout the album, and it is to the Hanscomb’s credit that they recognise the value of scarcity. Less is More.

My full review is published on Caught By The River: https://www.caughtbytheriver.net/2023/10/junkboy-littoral-states-review/