Jonathan Sebastian Knight

Scottish singer, songwriter and guitarist Jonathan Sebastian Knight has not wanted for acclaim in recent times. His previous incarnation My Cousin I Bid You Farewell had introductions from Tom Robinson, live performances on Vic Galloway’s show, were winners of King Tuts Your Sound Artist of the Month award, headlined the T-Break stage at T in the Park and recorded a live acoustic cover of Beyonce's Halo for Radio 1.

Now recording under his own name, Knight released Mannhunter earlier this month, and it’s quite a startling body of work. His recent solo shows have drawn comparisons with Jeff Buckley, Low, The xx, David Byrne, Antony Hegarty, Josh T. Pearson and Bonnie 'Prince' Billy among others, and it’s his voice which is his real, not-so-secret weapon. Strong and distinctive, it has just enough fragility lurking underneath to give a real sense of humanity and feeling to every word. Musically, the usual suspects will pop up in many write-ups of Mannhunter (see above), but perhaps the most fitting – on Horizons and Sweet Souvenir at least – is ( )-era Sigur Ros, with their atmospheric and minimal synths sounds hovering behind Knight’s fractured, pleading vocals. Flood is a more guitar-led affair, but no less haunting and memorable for its more standard approach. Delicate, austere and hypnotic, Jonathan Sebastian Knight’s Mannhunter is out now, and available from iTunes and bandcamp. - Generator

The internet is awash with opinion and conjecture. When a lonesome blogger sets fingers to keyboard to express feelings about a struggling artist it is all but lost in a sea of white noise; which is a shame really when you stumble across an artist like Jonathan Sebastian Knight.

An unspecified amount of time ago, I heard a small Scottish band with a big name called My Cousin I Bid You Farewell. The music was distorted, ramshackle and emotive. I ended up writing a little about them under the ‘Listen To’ section here. Since this time however MCIBYF have split and thus it was with some anticipation that I found out that Knight had gone solo, armed with his new Mannhunter EP. This behemoth, for behemoth it is, may stand at a mere three tracks yet Knight is so barefaced in his pain that listening to each song becomes akin to knitting at the guillotine; a ghoulish and shameful voyeurism into one man’s gnashing of teeth. Listening to these songs is as traumatic as it is addictive.Opener ‘Horizons’ addresses a bleak future whilst addressing an equally bleak past. An eerie synth and an even eerier baritone backing vocal are the only things that support Knight as he wails “All the priests in all the world couldn’t bless my wicked heart”. Simple piano chords echo out a touching riff for what sounds like a man falling apart.

‘Sweet Souvenir’ traverses similar grounds, driven forward by an irresistible reverb soaked guitar line that splices Knight’s torment in two. “I remember everything” he confesses as more piano carries us through his suffering.

‘Flood’ may move away from the abstract space that Knight has carved out in the previous two songs but for all the sparkling guitar offered up, his emotional composition remains distraught: “In my hands I’m holding a future of my own” he optimistically states before begging for a flood to come. “Forgive my sins” he repeats again over an ever drumless backdrop.

It’s difficult to pinpoint the root of the sorrows Knight expresses in his music, but he is skilled in his portrayal of human torment. Perhaps Manhunter sought to expound on distress in a manner that fitted the subject. Perhaps it’s simply disturbing to think that a sane man could have made such a brooding, dark hearted recording.

Nonetheless, music is emotion and it is here that Knight triumphs. He presents each of his trio of mournfulness as giant slabs of unabashed emotion, something that acclaimed pop-rock artists such as Coldplay, Snow Patrol and a latter day U2 strive for and fail to do regularly. There is no doubting that for some, listening to Mannhunter will be like running through glue, the songs too rich for their blood. Yet for those brave enough to peer into the madness of Knight’s mind they will find a moving and rewarding record of extraordinarily bleak perfection.

Mannhunter is out now. Listen to / download the whole of this EP for a mere £2 from: http://jonathansebastianknight.bandcamp.com/
- Music Gob