Junkboy

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Junkboy are a pastoral folk-core, experimental post-rock and electronica band that originated from Southend-on-Sea, Essex in the late nineties. The core members of the band include brothers Mik and Rich Hanscomb who are accompanied by a variety of other musicians to bolster their sound namely Richie Harwood (drums) Ben Gates (horns) and Carly Cutmore (flutes).
The brothers had roots in playing in various rock bands often covering Nirvana songs as teenagers, before deciding to change direction to create music that wasn’t built around the traditional verse-chorus-verse structure of guitar based music. Instead the brothers, with school friend James Gray, started to write music that was in keeping with their maturing musical tastes of krautrock and space-rock. It was then in 1998 that they decided to name themselves after a pornagrpahic Japanese animation of the same name and went about recording their songs at a local studio. A recording found its way to indi label Enraptured Records who released a double A-side 7” (ifyoulivedhereyou'dbehomebynow / infrastructure), and an EP (Kraut_hop Ya Don’t Stop!) in the space of a year. Both releases were warmly received by the press which earned the EP, Kraut_hop Ya Don’t Stop!, single of the week in the NME.

Junkboy came to the attention of Moshi Moshi records, who, after hearing new material by the band agreed to put out an EP entitled Robot and Proud. To this point Robot and Proud represented Junkboy's strongest work to date but at the time of it's release in 2000, personnel had changed. James Gray and drummer Paul 'Padams' Adams had left due to musical and personal differences whilst keyboardist Ed Rae Allison and multi instrumentalist Bryan Styles joined the band as the Junkboy sound morphed from space rock to a more mellow organic and structured sound. The band went about recording their first album for Moshi Moshi Records entitled The Dynamics of Modern Communication released in the long hot summer of 2002.

With the band back on Enraptured, Junkboy finished the difficult second album in late 2004. Entitled Lost Parade it is a colorful and ambient yet soulful sounding soundtracky album which represented another shift in sound which featured more layered vocals and a nod to the electronica direction of Junkboy's beginnings. The album appeared twice in Wire magazine; first as a favourable review of the album then as an appearance: Shadow and Act finding a place on the Wire Tapper CD in summer 2005 which showcased the likes of David Pajo and Hanne Hukkelberg. 2007 sees the release of Three the third Junkboy album. Junkboy have relocated to Brighton, Sussex where they continue to make music and play live.