Taking their unusual band name from a pornographic Japanese anime, brothers and multi-instrumentalists Rich Hanscomb and Mik Hanscomb first began working as Junkboy in 1999. Originally based in the sprawling seaside town of Southend-on-Sea, Essex, the duo began recording for the independent label Enraptured Records the same year with the single Ifyoulivedhereyou’dbehomebynow and the EP Kraut_Hop Ya Don’t Stop! They switched to the Moshi Moshi Music imprint for 2002’s full-length The Dynamics Of Modern Communication. Drifting by on a bed of acoustic guitars, jazzy saxophone, layered electronics and discreet vocals, the album’s mixture of gentle pastoral folk pop and post-rock structures certainly sounded pretty but ultimately proved rather inconsequential. After a hiatus in band activities, the Hanscombs revived Junkboy in 2005 and returned to the Enraptured stable to record Lost Parade. After relocating to Brighton, East Sussex, the brothers collaborated with a number of guest musicians on their more post rock oriented third album, Three which was out in 2008. In 2010 the pastoral and delicate Koyo was out, but it took fie years to have Sovereign Sky delivered. Trains,Trees, Topophilia came out in 2019 and the new album by the Hanscomb borthers, a companion piece of sorts to its predecessor is Littoral States out now on Wayside & Woodland.

What They Say: “If Trains…was Earth and Essex, Littoral States is Water and Sussex. ‘The idea for Littoral States came during lockdown. Our dad passed at the start of the pandemic. Amongst the confusion, trauma and the grief processing state sanctioned walks we began to formulate an idea for an album that traced a life line from dad to us via the coastal landscape of Sussex“.

Their Mixtape: “What Was HOT On Junkboy’s Stereo During The Making Of Littoral States“.

Hiroshi Yoshimura – Green

A few years ago, the excellent Light in the Attic label starting re-issuing Japanese New Age music, or kankyō ongaku – ‘environmental music’. Much of it is analogue ambient music made in the 80s which incorporates field recordings of nature. When Junkboy started, we were really into a lot of Shibuya-kei music and we took our name from a tawdry anime. Mik and I would maybe even self-identify as otaku in our teens. Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Green and Soundscape 1: Surround are fine examples of the genre we started digging into circa Littoral States. There’s another distant connection too – I live in Seaford, East Sussex, and a posthumously celebrated artist here is someone called Eric Slater. He made beautiful wood block prints of Seaford, Newhaven and the surrounding area. These prints were influenced by his neighbour Arthur Rigden Read who had been to Japan to study oriental woodcut techniques. In a sense, I’d like to think Junkboy are continuing a kind of British coastal Zen tradition.  – Rich

Forest – Gypsy Girl and Rambleway

I often turn to Forest for their quintessential British-baroque-psychedelic-folk sound and their ability to transport me to a different place, an imaged idyll far from the rigours of regular life. The Lincolnshire trio’s pagan influenced music is as haunting as the artwork for the album’s cover by artist Joan Melville.  – Mik

Pullman – Some Grain With New Wood

Pullman were such an important band to us. I recall seeing a little a Cargo distribution advert in the NME in 1998 for Turnpiles and Junkpiles and then a few months later being in Rough Trade under Slam City Skates in Covent Garden with Mik who bought it on vinyl. As brilliant as Turnpiles….is, we both really love their forgotten, sometimes maligned follow up, The Viewfinder. It’s arguably better – sweeter melodies, great lo-fi drums. The opener, Some Grain With New Wood, really exemplifies the DADGAD groove Pullman excelled at.  – Rich

Sandy Denny – Listen Listen

According to my research (Mik Houghton’s brilliant biography, I’ve Always Kept A Unicorn), this made single of the week in various parts of the music press when it was released in 1972. Deservedly so. Great instrumentation and sublime vocal melodies, taken from the album Sandy which also features pedal steel courtesy of sometime Byrds and Burritos sessioner, Sneaky Pete Kleinow, among other guest musicians. – Mik

Ultramarine – Kingdom

I started reading the music press in 1993. Ultramarine were always in the NME’s On section and were described as folk-techno. I just loved that phrase, a seemingly strange juxtaposition. It was completely alien to me of course because I was into guitar music. Then one week a picture of them appeared in the section – two extremely regular looking, smiling chaps with unfashionably short hair and baggy, bland t shirts. As nerdy teenager in 1993 I could see myself in guys like this as opposed to, say, Brett Anderson. Anyway, Ultramarine and the concept of folk-techno really stayed with me but pre internet I was unable to listen to their music. Whilst making Littoral States I belatedly got into the album and it was a good as I’d imagined with would be when I was first introduced to them as a teenager. Richard King’s book, The Lark Ascending: The Music of the British Landscape, elaborates brilliantly on Ultramarine’s Kingdom and the notion of this kind of dance music being an extension of the communal and anarchic rituals associated with British folk-dance traditions. – Rich

Lo Borges – Equatorial

Brazilian singer songwriter Lo Borges in fine form on his 1979 album A Via-Láctea (aka the Milky Way). The piano led poppy ballard Equatorial with it’s key changes, synth lead and pumping bass is one of our favourite tracks. We’ve long been Tropicália fans. – Mik

Joe Hisaishi – A Scene At The Sea OST

We started making Littoral States in lockdown as a response to our dad’s passing. During that period I was able to carve out time to sign up with BFI’s site and their Japanese film season which is how I saw Beat Takeshi’s affecting, whimsical A Scene At The Sea. Joe Hisaishi’s soundtrack is so joyous – melodic and Steve Reich esque. The track here is an outlier on the album, sombre, Satie style. Quietly devastating much like a global pandemic I guess – Rich

The Beach Boys – Love To Say Da Da

There isn’t much that needs to be said here about an album and a band given to decades of over analysis apart from: the idea of Brian Wilson in 1966 sending Michael Vosse up to Big Sur to record water sounds for inclusion in his Elements suite. What a concept! Love To Say Da Da is ‘water’ and it’s beautiful. – Rich

The Album:

LITTORAL STATES

Field recordings were collected from seasides and rivers west to east: Bognor Regis where their dad was born along to Worthing where both Mik and the Sussex water dragon of legend, the Knucker, call home, through the babbling bohemia of Brighton where the brothers escaped from Essex to in another lifetime, past the blue collar port town of Newhaven and along to the maritime suburbia of Seaford where Rich resides as the South Downs meets the sea.
Integrating the field recordings in subtle, textual ways, the boys began to build out a new set of songs, a response to their environment, a paean to their dad, creating a music that finds solace and joy in the beautiful banalities, normalcy, folklore and the National Trust approved splendour of Sussex coastal life.
As well as the usual cast of seasoned sessioners that have helped shape Junkboy’s home baked studio confections over the years such as Will Calderbank (cello), Becca Wright (violins), Marcus Hamblett (trumpets), Owen Gillham (banjo and e bow), the boys were also joined by singer Hannah Lewis. A native of west Sussex, Hannah embellished Littoral States with a deeply Romantic vocal sensibility as heard on the Beaufort scale busting Witch of Watery Depths and Sea Captain amongst other pearls and Nuggets. Working with Wayside & Woodland, the brothers have found near perfect musical platform partners. ‘We were fans first and foremost – epic45, El Heath, Avrocar – these are artists that have inspired us for a long time. We’ve shared both stages and a similar approach to making music with them for years now! To be given the chance to be part of the stable is an honour’ they state. Epic45’s Ben Holton’s aesthetic vision can be found in his work on the album layout, utilising Jolene Karmen’s Sussex, coastal photography to give proceedings a suitably Shell Guide To sensibility.
Forging less a career more a life in music, Littoral States is the next stage of the Hanscomb brothers’ sonic peregrination, backwards into the future.

Littoral States is out now via Wayside & Woodland. Look HERE for more information on Junkboy.