junkboy - lost parade
second album from the junkboy gang where everything remains the same, yet everything is different.
having had their first album, the dynamics of modern communication, released on moshi moshi quite a few years ago now, the band then started to suffer interpersonal shifts, to such a degree that this album was probably never actually going to see the light of day, thus making rich junkboy go off and start performing under a new name, shinri, to continue his own personal musical quest. but, somehow the various components have managed to sort things out and revive the spirit of the band to finally finish and release this lovely record.
first there are a few details that need to be checked over. firstly the artwork, whereas before, the junkboy covers were always pristine, sharply defined images, here they have used a variety of hand drawn images and various logos scattered across the booklet and cd, making the appearance a lot more rustic and natural as opposed to the clinical precision of previous releases. then start digging into the inspiration list - brian wilson, madlib, m.f.doom, premier, puts, beastie boys, etc. prior to me dropping the disc in the machine i was beginning to wonder if junkboy had gone all banging hiphop joints on us. but i need not have had such concerns. as once again, the music is mellow and smooth almost to the point of being ambient, with soft layered reverb, echo'd trumpets, strummed guitars, marimbas and a heavy reliance on simple piano melody lines. sometimes, these elements are supplemented with levels of jazz or even folk, but in a smoky, lazy sunday afternoon way, often with rather special results. along with the various instrumentals that dominate the album, the band have added vocals to the mix (shared between brothers rich and mik hascomb - the mainstay of the junkboy moniker in 2005), adding a much welcome human element to the music, as well as the packaging. this addition to the bands palette steer the album into new territories, as the delicate hushed vocals are open and emotionally bare, the brothers haven't become the underground equivalent of david gray or damien rice, but instead, there are definite pointers to the lost classic that is mark hollis's solo album, as well as dipping into the new cool of updated lo-fi folk of tuung.
admittedly, the sheer lack of any real ooomph factor means that this album can drift through the listeners' consciousness with little in the way of anything being registered, but sometimes that's just what the world needs in these fast and charged times. especially as, the more you listen, the more you realise that hidden within are some rather cool extras. whether it's the opening stolen dialogue with references to dark unpleasant happenings, or the harmonious beauty that is marimba excess of 'spring', the splintered drum machine that populates the sonics of 'embers', or even the folk infused acoustic guitars of 'lost parade' which blends in well, despite the fact that the doubled up vocal harmonies make the head spin with 'simon and garfunkel' comparisons, no matter how hard i try to resist. though my own personal fave, is the opening few minutes of the subtle ambient dub experiment 'bass/snare', where a nice little funky wah wah guitar effect is situated within a hushed bass line prior to the presence of piano, percussion and synthetic ambience move in and redirect the track into some other form.
hopefully, now that the album has been given its rightful space in the release schedule, the band can feel proud in their collective achievement, and realise that they have crafted something special.
'lost parade' may be an album that will probably be filed in amongst other lo-fi releases, but rest assured that the natural non-intrusive production, the complete lack of modern genre experiments (ignoring the quietly dysfunctional drum clicks that are present throughout), has meant that this quiet storm of an album has a supremely timeless quality about it, making it proudly stand apart from the usual highly polished market researched releases that fill the normal record emporium racks.