home normal

Today we welcome the release of one of my favourite artists over the past few years; Jason Corder’s mighty offthesky. The new offthesky record is called Hiding Nature and is a perfect example of melodic fragmented structures which Jason has become so recognised for. Pop on over to the releases page for tracks, gorgeous cover art by Joseph Borreson and more information.

We are now getting very low on our Japan based stock as I try to cut this down before I move house at the end of the month. We have very few Flau left in the sale, but we have just added the two latest releases by Kumisolo and Henning Schmiedt. We will also have the new Hibernates and Under The Spire in any day now.

Monday saw the release of the new Chihei Hatakeyama album ‘A Long Journey’. Its a real thrill to be able to release an artist and friend on Home Normal such as Chihei.. It has already been highly recommended by Darla, P*Dis, Smallfish, and Norman Records, and Boomkat made it an album of the week. It has been selling super fast so my advice would be to get your hands on a copy as soon as possible! The cover art is by the sorely missed but forever loved Danielle Baquet-Long, whose poetic, musical and photographic work really is very special indeed. Thanks to Will for being so open to us using her work for Chihei’s cover.

As I am moving house, I am having a bit of a clear out of some of the Japan (and some UK) based stock. As such we are selling off much of our Room40, Someone Good, Flau, Son of Rose, Corey Fuller, Offthesky and Color Cassette stock, plus we are having a sale on the Mountain Ocean Sun release ‘Peace Conference’ for a short time only! We also still have our ‘get a free CD of your choice when you spend over £50 on CD’s’ deal. Enjoy the post-Christmas shopping I say! The new, more accessible and updated shop, including lots of new stock, old vinyl, rarities, dirt cheap used stuff and Home Normal ’seconds’ (ie. cd’s where the cut was a bit out etc) will be up by mid-February hopefully. There is a group of five members who go out to small local record shops in the US, UK and Japan, searching for weird and hidden gems, so we can just have a bit of fun with our little store! I have already picked up about 700 albums the past three months, many of which will be available to purchase soon. More info soon about this and the forthcoming Offthesky record ‘Hiding Nature’.

KONNTINENT ‘OPAL ISLAND’
I am massively chuffed to announce the release of the Konntinent album ‘Opal Island’. He’s been one of my favourite artists for a while now, has become a good friend, collaborator and Home Normal show organiser, and the album is just incredible really (and like L/M/R/W has gotten lots of thumbs up!). Its an amazing record, with a lovely vocal appearance by Lisa Madisson, mastered by Taylor Deupree, with cover art by yours truly, and is something to treasure indeed. As per always, its available at all good stockists, is a best seller and highlight at most right now, and is also available in our own shop.

SOME QUICK NEWS ABOUT POSTAL NIGHTMARES AND FROZEN HILLY ROADS
Ben lives on a hill. The snow came down, the hill got icey and couriers and Ben’s car stuck their fingers up and said ‘no way’. For those outside the UK the past two weeks…its been a nightmare for posting. We couldn’t get stock, couldn’t get out of the house even at times, add to this the UK Christmas postal delays…been a bit wild to say the least. So…some of the initial orders were a bit delayed but for those (99% of you) who ordered a bunch of the new stock - we have sent it all out ahead of schedule to make up for this!

The Japan post has been having a bit of a nightmare too…while I was in the UK I had four packages returned as my writing of ‘O’ looks like a ‘D’..and no I am not joking. If ANYTHING is out of place, or a little different, they hold onto packages and then eventually send them back…frustrating! But such is life I suppose. Post has gone missing and whilst this is ridiculous, at least the Japanese postal service can look into what happened. So if you ordered a package and it hasn’t arrived let me know and I will look into it. The same is true for UK orders (and missing UK orders are more common esp over Christmas). Please note if you ordered and I am sending from Japan, it won’t take a day to arrive!!!

And finally, I WILL be updating the blog and all that jazz v soon - been a mad work week or two to be honest so gotten rather behind! There will be another post out for the new release by Chihei Hatakeyama next week! Also, if you are near Loopline in Sendagaya, Tokyo this Saturday - come along to see both Chihei and I play live, plus pick up early copies of our respective Home Normal releases!

Well, after some very severe snow storms in the UK over the Christmas period, the CD’s finally arrived earlier this week. We are very sorry for the delays to home_n009 release by L/M/R/W, ‘Drifts’. The stock has been sent out for the most part so you can pick up your copies at your favourite distributors or at our own store as always. For those who ordered from our shop we did get a wee bit delayed with these orders but have made up for that by sending out ‘pre-orders’ nice and early for your enjoyment! We simply couldn’t get out of Ben’s house as he lives on a hill and were totally snowed in! So, once again sorry for the slight delay. Add that to the backlog of Christmas post with Royal Mail and you can see we have been having a nightmare!

However, we are finally good to go and I am thrilled to report the new digipaks in matte look gorgeous! home_n009 is out NOW and is by the mighty L/M/R/W. In case you were wondering, its something of a super-group - much like Mountain Ocean Sun was with Warren Defever and the IDA crew for their Peace Conference release a little while back. We do like our secret super-groups it seems! So who are L/M/R/W? Well…

L stands for Leo Fabriek adding harmonium to Birthday and subtle piano touches to Tegendraads.

M stands for Mariska Baars who also composes solo as Soccer Committee but never is shy to engage in a collaboration. The only ’she’ of the gang adds guitar and voice on Birthday and voice on Clay.

R stands for Rutger Zuydervelt (aka Machinefabriek) and is the only one featured on all three tracks adding guitar, sampler, effects and editing to Birthday and Tegendraads. On Clay he seems to control the controls.

W stands for Wouter van Weldhoven who also releases solo compositions. On Birthday and Tegendraads he contributes taperecorders and melodica.

Track 1 and 3 were initially released as Live Edits on cassette by Digitalis, track 2 initially released as Clay on 3-inch cd-r by Machinefabriek. The tracks have also been (re)mastered by myself and contain gorgeous cover art by Rutger. So hop on over to the shop or any of our lovely distributors for a copy of this wonderful work!

More news over the weekend as we are steam-rolling some amazing work in the next month…well, year even! Next up will be Konntinent’s rather incredible ‘Opal Island’. Stay warm, don’t get snowed in if possible and speak soon!

Yes that’s right, we will be having our big Christmas show this coming Sunday (the 20th) at Cafe Oto, London! The show will feature yours truly do some of my improvised micro-elements, The Boats, Danny Norbury and the mighty Home Normal trio of Konntinent, Isnaj Dui and KESH curator, former Slowdive drummer, the mighty Simon Scott! Its already been highly recommended by Time Out, Fluid Radio and various lovely blog and zines. Its going to be an awesome night and we’d love to see you there! If you fancy going please go here to purchase an advanced ticket: http://www.wegottickets.com/event/64922

Also, apologies for the delays in our releases of the marvellous L/M/R/W. Konntinent, Chihei Hatakeyama and offthesky albums. We had a problem waiting for the printer in this ‘peak’ season as they say…so we have unfortunately had to delay these releases until January with new release dates. What it does mean is that in January and February we are going to be all over the place with incredible, jaw-dropping music :). It should also be noted we have changed, for these releases at least, our packaging to a rather gorgeous matte digipack with credits now down the spine. They look super lush and at no extra cost.

I will also be releasing my ‘Slow Films In Low Light’ album - a collection of remixes and reworkings by other artists on the Home Normal roster past, present and future. ALL the money from this release will be going to The Archway Foundation, a charity who serve those affected by loneliness. That means that if you spend £5.99 (special price), the charity gets £5.99 directly.. For more information about this, plus sound clips and information, simply go to the relevant release page. Thanks! Hope to see you at the show but if not have a wonderful Christmas and more to come in the New Year, oh, plus and end of year review from myself and all the artists involved this year! More soon on the newsletter (sign up on the information page).
Cheers, Ian

offthesky / color cassette special offer
We have some very rare releases fresh in from jason corder (offthesky / color cassette) including his long deleted mobeer 004 release under color cassette ’small town smoker’. Exclusive to Home Normal and Experimedia (I think) - anyone who buys an offthesky release will be sent a link to download his EP ‘Du Soliel’ for FREE. Anyone who buys a Color Cassette release will be sent a link to download some Color Cassette B-sides for FREE.

Seems like its been a while since our last end of summer releases with Isnaj Dui and Mountain Ocean Sun. But, slightly later than planned we are back with albums from Le Lendemain and Greg Davis. Some of you will be unfamiliar with Le Lendemain but not with the guys behind it, namely David Wenngren and Danny Norbury. David is well known as Library Tapes who kicked off Home Normal all those months ago now, Danny played cello on that very album. Despite working together before for two Library Tapes albums, this is their first album together and its a thing of staggering beauty, poise and delicacy. Its called ‘Fires’ and will be out this coming Friday (the 23rd).

Greg Davis is of course a name many of you will be familiar with for his work on Carpark Records, Kranky and Room40 to name a few. I have long been a fan of Greg’s work and really wanted to release some of Greg’s live improvisational work. ‘Midpoint’ just goes to show how enormously talented Greg is over two live sets, 3 years apart, in Bellingham, Washington and Burlington, Vermont respectively. ‘Midpoint’ will be released the following Friday (30th).

Special mention to the brilliant photographer Liam Frankland who provided the cover art for this release. For more about Liam and his work please hit the link below:

www.liamfrankland.com

Pre-orders are up now. We hope you enjoy these two phenomenal releases!

After a long hot summer of postal strikes and delays, we are thrilled to finally be releasing the excellent Mountain Ocean Sun album ‘Peace Conference’.

Mountain Ocean Sun are: Jean Cook, Hitoko Sakai, Daniel Littleton and Warren Defever. Daniel Littleton has spent years playing with NYC’s quietest band IDA, and is also a frequent Tara Jane Oneil collaborator. Jean Cooks a violin-veteran and has jammed with everyone from Jon Langford to William Parker and Assif Tsahar. Hitoko Sakai worked with Japanese noise artist MSBR for years performing, organizing tours, and writing about the Japanese experimental and noise scene before recently moving to the USA. Warren Defever runs an artspace in Detroit called the UFO FACTORY and probably best known for his work with His Name is Alive (4AD).

Peace Conference is a 64 minute piece of harmonium, strings, bells, gongs, shruti boxes, percussion wonderment. For sound clips and more info go to the releases page, to grab a copy please go to the shop or visit one of our lovely distributors.

Hi all,

Sorry for the delay as things have been a bit hectic (I’m actually writing this from Hong Kong airport on transit to Tokyo!). Isnaj Dui’s wonderful album ‘Unstable Equilibrium’ came out on Friday with some great early reviews and responses. Katie’s work is totally unique, melodic and just fab so please give it a whirl on the releases page. If you like it you can buy it from us direct or go to one of our lovely distributors. If you ordered both the Mountain Ocean Sun and Isnaj Dui albums we will be dispatching this a few days before release (the 10th of Sept) separately so you can expect the Isnaj Dui to arrive in a few days still.

Other good news in the shop is that we have finally sorted out the postage plug-in so that the cost is £1.99 first item plus 0.49 each extra item. Yes we are still sending out CD’s from our 2 London addresses and Tokyo address (which was one reason we had the 1.99 per item postage) but we didn’t expect to have so many loyal customers buying loads of stock in one go and being forced to pay silly postage prices! Despite this we have sorted out our stock so that most of it will be now sent out by Ben in London whilst I do have some of the Mobeer and Flau stock in Tokyo - however for such orders we will take the cost of this postage as its our fault for being oh so very global!

Final news is that Tokyo Droning’s (our brother/sister label) first release by offthesky ‘fluoroscence’ sold out in our shop in 12 hours! For those of you who have been asking where they can get a copy, well Norman Records sold out quick flash BUT I think Smallfish Records still have one or two copies (literally one or two!). Also we staggered this release so that Darla, Experimedia and Databloem will have this in a week or so - more to come on that in a bit. Thanks to Jason for his inspirational work and to whoever has bought / will buy a copy - we really appreciate the support for such a small experimental label/project.

Speak soon!

Unfortunately, due to forces out of our control (namely the postal strikes in the UK), our printer’s have fallen way behind in getting Mountain Ocean Sun’s ‘Peace Conference’ ready in time for our release date. For some bizarre reason, which we were only made aware of yesterday, the Isnaj Dui album is ready despite this. As such Isnaj Dui’s (006) ‘Unstable Equilibrium’ will still be released on the 28th of August as planned, but the Mountain Ocean Sun release will now be officially unveiled on the 11th of September. For those who have pre-ordered both we will be sending out 006 on the 28th of August and MOS on the 11th of September as per release date, or we can offer a full refund on MOS due to this delay. We apologise to those of you anticipating the Mountain Ocean Sun release - there really was/is nothing we can do about it. Blame the Royal Mail - not us! Many thanks.

Hi all. Very happy to report that despite some delays we are nicely gearing up for our 5th and 6th releases. First up is the excellent Mountain Ocean Sun with ‘Peace Conference’ - a 64 minute one track album of live, organic, and profoundly beautiful drone. For our 6th release we have the lovely Isnaj Dui with her acoustic manipulated gem ‘Unstable Equilibrium’. You can hear samples and get more information on the releases page. These will be up for pre-order on the 14th of August.

On another note, I am pleased to report that we have developed our shop with the latest Mobeer stock with the excellent New North Wales release (Mobeer 008). Snap this up for a mere £7 quick as these always sell out light speed…or maybe cheetah speed…ok… very fast! In fact, we only just snuck in the Mobeer 007 release which sold out everywhere else because we had them at my house in London and I just got back from Tokyo for the summer!

And finally, because at Home Normal nothing is ever, um, normal…well, we have some very big (for a label our size) news, namely we have opened up our little ‘brother’ project, Tokyo Droning. Each release will be limited edition (to 100) in handmade packaging (each release is numbered 0 - 100 and in the exact same style, packaging each time). Whereas Home Normal focuses distinctly on a sense of ‘home’ and my own broad concept of what ‘minimal’ means, Tokyo Droning will really focus on experiments in sound, live work, field recording and anything where the artist is free to try something new and different (in an individual way more than a rather vague general way). As a result its more typically ‘minimal’ I suppose but the main focus is on ‘experimental’ really. Our first release will be by one of my favourite artists (and Home Normal artist as well with his December release), offthesky (Jason Corder). ‘Fluorescene’ was made from a live show by Jason, recording a fluorescent light and then processing to create some of the most beautiful and uniquely toned drones I have ever heard. This will be released Friday the 14th (next Friday and the same day the Home Normal pre-orders go up). For more information please go to the site: www.tokyodroning.com

Thanks, bon voyage and see you very soon x

Its with huge sadness and regret that I have to announce the passing away of Danielle Baquet-Long. Dani was well known for her solo work under Chubby Wolf, her poetry and writing, as well as of course being one half of the husband-wife duo Celer. Her work as an artist was soulful, direct, subtle, romantic and stunningly beautiful.

On a personal level, as will be the case for an extraordinary number of people who were friends with both Will and Dani, this is a deeply felt loss. I am so thankful for the past couple of years now of contact with them, and a relationship which meant they were the first artists I asked to join the Home Normal label…indeed, it was upon hearing ‘Engaged Touches’ that I decided to just go ahead and start Home Normal as the timing seemed right. Sadly the timing of Dani’s passing, aged just 26, is far too short. Yet Dani’s voice will live on through her immense body of work and through those who were blessed enough to have known her. Our thoughts and love are with Will, family and friends.

Here’s what Will has been sending out to friends…

:::

Dear friends,

With great sadness I have to announce to you, our friends, that Dani passed away yesterday, July 8. On Tuesday morning I woke to find her unconscious, and not breathing. The medics were called, and she was revived, but fell directly into a coma and didn’t wake up. She passed away yesterday at 3pm, with her family by her. All that is known to say why is that her heart stopped, for no foreseeable reason. The only relation is that her father died in the same way, of a cardiac arrest at the age of 29. She was 26.

Right now I don’t know how to express the loss and sadness I feel, knowing that someone so ultimately close to me, and such an inspiration and friend to so many other people in the world is gone. All I can say is that she won’t be forgotten, or pushed aside only because she’s gone. She’ll always be with me, as my inspiration, my love, my everything. All I can say is I miss her, every second.

Right now I won’t be able to answer many emails, as there’s only so much I can talk about this. Time will heal this, but I know the sadness will never go away. This, I’m ok with, as I never want to forget every way she changed my life, and touched my heart.

I appreciate all your support and love, and even though many of you only knew her through her poetry, or her music, I hope they are good memories. Enclosed is a favorite photo of her, taken at her beach, at home.

Also, here was her favorite quote:

“The Meaning is in the Wonder”
- Kenneth Patchen

Sincerely,
Will

Thanks to everyone who came to the show on Saturday in Ikebukuro. It was great for Miko and I to play newly decorated (ie. pluggable) guitarlele’s and I also had an excuse to buy a nice new classical electrical guitar. Special shout out to Dela, Pakchee and the excellent Taishi Kamiya and Yui Onodera (who both played amazing sets). A fun night was had by all. For more about the show plus photos from Dela and Pakchee please go here: Dela’s Blog and here: Pakchee’s Blog

In more news we are really thrilled to be adding to our fabulous line-up of friendly distributors, this time in Germany with the ever so lovely A-Musik. Please go to the information page for their link.

We have now added the Flau stock to the store as well as the first of our Mobeer stock. This is great news for us as Aus’s Flau label has been a favourite of mine for a while, it shares a couple of our artists and we frequent the exact same part of Tokyo on a daily basis! Mobeer, of course, is run by none other than The Boats boys, is the little bro of Moteer, has released Aus himself (and The Boats have released on Flau too), as well as the last Mobeer being a split featuring yours truly. So its all family really. Oh, and 12k stock will be arriving anyday now - Taylor (who runs 12k) is lined-up to master a bunch of our albums in the near future (and has just finished the Celer / Yui Onodera collaboration due out November).

Last but certainly not least, the Soundscaping online magazine have very kindly written a feature about Home Normal and our first three releases. Its a really nice review and many thanks to Trym for taking the time to write this all without any word from us whatsoever. They also have a new label starting up which sounds very exciting. To see the feature and check out their own label please go here:  Soundscaping

We are really thrilled to be releasing this great album from young Brighton-based artist, Christopher Hipgrave. As per usual for more info about Christopher and the album please go to the relevant links, and please visit our shop to buy his album and our other releases if they take your fancy. We are also slowly developing the shop for Home Normal connections, so apart from our own releases, we have Christian Roth’s Humming Conch label work (including Celer), a large stock of 12k will arrive any day now and in the very near future we will welcome the highly sought after Mobeer work into the fold.

On another note, to celebrate our 4th release we are having a small party in Ikebukuro, Tokyo on Saturday 27th of June. If you are in town please come down to enjoy some great music from Taishi Kamiya, Yui Onodera, Miko, Pakchee and myself (Ian). Dela (CMFLG) will be spinning some loveliness and its only going to be 500yen entrance to enjoy some great music. We look forward to seeing some of you there!

Come to the Home Normal shop or you can find the album at any number of great shops online or in person (see information section for distributors). Hugs and warmest thanks to Andrew, Craig and Chris for making this wonderful record for the world and allowing us to put it out there for your enjoyment.