Home is Normal
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Label: Home Normal
Year: 2009
Format: CD
For 2009, we have discovered a new label starting out which has gone from strength to strength with its releases, from the inauguration that saw the debut feature Library Tapes just briefly precede the second album by Celer. Two impressive releases we will come back too, and now halfway through 2009, Ian Hawgood’s label returns already with two new, seminal releases from the newly-become trio The Boats and lastly now introducing a new name in form of Christopher Hipgrave.
The focus of this feature is the first three releases of this absolutely lovely quartet from Home Normal, namely Library Tapes’ Sketches, Celer’s Engaged Touches and The Boats’ Words Are Something Else.
Library Tapes is the musical moniker of Swedish musician, David Wenngren, who invites cellist Danny Norbury (as of 2009 allegedly contributing more regularly to the duo that is The Boats) for this album – originally conceived as a live tour-album and a re-release of the 2007 release on Make Mine Music, but which luckily has received new-found attention and treatment and to yet again share with us this neo-classical wonder of 11 fleeting sketches, glimpses of scenes portrayed in the meeting predominantly featuring Wenngren’s piano complemented by Norbury’s exquisite and fragile cello. In “Fields” as with the intro “Snowleaf”, Norbury takes on a more prominent role and leads where Wenngren’s piano fades to a subdued, backing role. The overall atmosphere is one of austerity and gravity, warmed by the inherent emotions and personal touches of tenderly stroked strings and lingering piano keys, and in only 25 minutes the show is over, leaving you both longing for more and quite satified with the impressions you have been given as a listener.
Moving on to Engaged Touches, with whic Celer have moved to a new level of long-form compositions, the presence of traditional instruments have become more audible and distinguishable as a growing and subsiding sweep of neo-classical elegance moves through various passages of strings – complemented gracefully by the echoed voices and rhythmic repetitions of field recordings found at train stations – as hinted at by the cover photo. When the flowing strings cease, harrowing and reverberating echoes of voices and clicks transports the listener into the next phase; sweeping strings, coming in waves in varying strength and tone – with a profusely lulling effect that automatically lowers shoulders and eases on any tension – fusing all the strengths I can name of ambient, classical and the sensations of romance and sweet emotions – transgressing the abstract of floating strings in passages between contact with the real world of train stations and civilisation; moments where the journeys reach intermission and choose new directions to go, and in a sense the strings filling the long pauses between voices and train tracks, seem longing for that personal closeness. Romantic deep into its veins, reminiscent of early Celer works, but for me one of the best albums I have heard in their career so far – one which I am really anticipating the future of. Of the first three Home Normal releases, this is seriously worth hunting down if you can (and as a friendly tip I’d check the international shop section of Dale Lloyd’s OAR label!).
Last pick of the bunch is the new release from The Boats, behind which we find the prolific musicians Craig Tattersall and Andrew Hargreaves, and its a welcome return indeed since they were last seen out of the bay on Moteer all those years ago and more recently last year for Flau and Our Small Ideas. In their new release, Words Are Something Else, we see The Boats adopting several sources for influence and deliver a deep and sluggish, minimalistic techno and thump and clicks-laden endeavour on an acid-tip with vocoder-like lyrics from Chris Stewart – a very fitting, and at times unnerving, complement to the slow, head-bobbing melodies. Fashionable track titles coupled with catchy micro-beats and -clicks, feeling both like older material from The Boats as well as taking on the feeling of a range of peers, most closely Autechre, Move D and some recent year favourites of mine in NYC at home on Microcosm Music, Goosehound and Found Sound, the likes of Ezekiel Honig’s micro-domestic-life observations and the fun and weird clicks of Someone Else and Mis’Kate and warm and fuzzy brand of micro-electronics, albeit touched up with the grace of Stewart’s blended voice.
Web resources:
Home Normal label website
Library Tapes at myspace
Celer website
The Boats at myspace
Our Small Ideas label website
Christopher Hipgrave
Danny Norbury at myspace
Make Mine Music label website
