Home Normal

Eight years into their collaboration, Wil Bolton and Home Normal main-man Ian Hawgood have finished their first full-length album. Transparencies is a tender release full of intimate interplay of instruments and sounds: Bolton and Hawgood are perfectly suited to one another, sharing a subtle melodic approach. Released on Home Normal in a limited edition of 500 CDs.

One of Tobias’ little known releases appeared on our little sub-label Tokyo Droning back in 2011. ‘Kaskelot’ was a four-track E.P. that was incredibly popular in Japan, and coming housed in locally-sourced packaging, it was one of the highlights of this six-release label that was re-opened just after the Tōhoku earthquake. Being incredibly limited as a Japan-exclusive, the album has long been sold out. We are so happy that we will be releasing the updated edition of a personal favourite release of ours, and one that has continued the fine work Tobias had published for Home Normal with his revered ‘Evolutions’ in 2010, and his follow-up ‘Everything Is Connected’ in 2012. We had discussed a reissue of sorts for many years, and over a number of emails back and forth (and a good old chat in London when Tobias performed at The Vortex for us in March 2013), we came up with a list of remixers to expand on the original pieces which have since been remastered. - Ian Hawgood

Glass-mastered CD with: insert to front featuring photography by Peter Nejedly / obi credit strip / hand-embossed printing / unique vintage large format negative / extra download code slip / packaged in a vintage glassine bag

Glass-mastered CD with: insert to front featuring photography by Peter Nejedly / obi credit strip / hand-embossed printing / unique vintage large format negative / extra download code slip / packaged in a vintage glassine bag

This comes in our 4 panel reverse board card package in an edition of 500. In the spring of 2014 my wife and I stayed at a remote log cabin in the Black Mountains. Anne was taken ill from the moment we arrived and barely left the bed all week. I’d packed a laptop, small midi keyboard and portable hard disc recorder, and resolved that if we weren’t to have a break together I’d at least salvage something from the trip. I’d spent a lot of time around then thinking about how haunted we are by our lost loved and not-so-loved ones. About how these ghosts can be more than just absences, that they can actually exist in some real sense as shadows cast by our fears and regrets. The horse-whisperer who owns the cabin told us when we arrived of the local belief that up in those mountains the veil between this world and the next is at its thinnest. From the first nightfall to the very end of our stay I felt like the atmosphere in that place was charged, agitated somehow, like everything was on the verge of cracking.