Today, good friends and contemporaries Junkboy release ‘Trains, Trees and Topophilia’ on Fretsore Records. Before summer bust on a flying visit to Brighton, their adopted home, I penned the following thoughts on their upcoming release. Now seems a time as pertinent as any to allow them to breathe. Though nominally 5 years have passed, it could feel like another decade. In this time I feel I have observed a state of almost constant flux, a time uncomfortable with how it should take form. Back in 2014, as my work started taking me far across the country with views snatched from train windows as the landscape was hurried by, I was often accompanied by the enchantingly titled ‘Sovereign Sky’, an album which appeared so fully and confidently formed I felt I had known it for years. I now find myself no less far from home, in the city of Brighton on the south coast, just down for the day with Junkboy's new offering as my companion. Though much around us has changed, the brothers Hanscomb are still channelling the same rich stream, their ideas distilled with particular clarity and economy. These are arrangements which seem in evident peace with their surroundings, expressions of warmth and familiarity. The chimes of the titular ‘Trains, Trees and Topophilia’ peal as if from a spire overhead whilst string arrangements appear crisp and clear like bursts of sunlight on stark chalk headland. A journey well rehearsed where familiar sights and formations show hidden details if caught in focus. This is music which feels entirely unforced, flecked with fine detail and influence. The serpentine Kirby-esq strings wander like Brighton's very own ‘Lanes’, paired here with some brass and there, left to drift slowly on the tide. As we traverse our land, we look out for waypoints, singular marks from which to know where we are and how close to where we are going. In what feels like a world of constant change, it is heartening to find something so appreciably and instantly familiar, leaving me with a real sense of well-being as I turn northwards and home. Eric Heath, May 2019. Trains, Trees and Topophilia is out today, Friday 2nd August 2019, on Fretsore Records and Selected Retailers.
