Psychedelic soul from a Brighton cellar.

“The feel of it is a kind of early 70s radio sound. It’s a kind of familiar nostalgia,” says vocalist Jessie Banks, describing the sound of her band, Brighton’s psychedelic soul three-piece Chungking. “It took a while to settle on our sound,” she explains. “It really came down to good songs. With a good song you’re prepared to sing it for a long time.”

The story begins with Sean Hennessey, who was making music in his cellar in Brighton with his friend James Stephenson. The pair began auditioning vocalists - unsuccessfully. “I was going out with Sean at the time,” says Jessie. “And he was auditioning other people for the band, other girls and stuff. I was thinking, ‘Come on, give us a go then.’ I used to write quite hippy-ish, fey songs and I think they were looking for somebody with a bigger voice. But when I got into it I thought, ‘I can do this.’”

As they realised they were onto something musically, the love affair within the band came to an end. Despite this, the trio struggled on: “I think there was a realisation of how dedicated we were to the band because we thought we’ve got to keep on doing this. It kind of taught us how much we wanted to do this music,” says Jessie. “There are definitely songs on the album that came out of that time.”

Meanwhile, their music had made its way to Japan. “We made some demo CDs which we gave out to friends. We didn’t think they’d gone very far but actually quite a lot of people had heard this stuff,” says Jessie. “And this DJ in Tokyo who’d met a friend of a friend of ours absolutely loved it, and had cut it from the CD onto a load of 12-inchers.”

One of these 12-inchers ended up in the hands of Tim “Love” Lee, owner of Tummy Touch Records. After some detective work, he tracked the band down and coaxed them into finishing the album. “Had we not had a deadline we’d probably still be doing it. We’re the kind of people who can go round and round,” reckons Jessie. “It’s quite hard to say, ‘Right, that’s it, it’s done,’ because you always think you can get it better.”

With the album finished, the band are looking forward to promoting it and playing live. “We’ve already got a lot of material for the next album, but we’re going to hold off for a bit,” she says. “I just want to be out playing, doing lots of summer gigs and enjoying the feedback.” Matt Walton 30 May 03

Chungking – We Travel Fast, released 23 June 03 on Tummy Touch Records.

useful link: www.chungking-music.com