Headphone Commute recently published a beautiful mix created entirely of tracks published on the Home Normal label. Although all tracks in the mix are interesting enhough to check out the full CD’s, I had to restrain myself when visiting the label website.
So I decided to start by ordering the latest release by Ian Hawgood (also Home Normal’s label owner): “Slow Films in Low Light“.
“Slow Films in Low Light” is a collection of reworkings of Ian Hawgood’s (now deleted) album “Soundtrack To A Film In My Head Which Will Never Get Made”. All tracks are “Films” recreated by a lot of Hawgood’s musical friends, and the result is a good overview of the kind of music Home Normal stands for.
I’m not familiar with the original album, so I cannot compare the tracks to their originals, but the reworkings and remixed do stand up for themselves, presenting a broad range of music compelling enough to further investigate the Home Normal releases (so be warned!).
The 14 “Slow Films” include tracks from Danny Norbury, Pan Am Scan, Geskia!, Hannu, Miko, The Green Kingdom, Library Tapes, Ten and Tracer, Chihei Hatakeyama, Federico Durand, The Remote Viewer, Color Cassette, Yuri Miyauchi and He Can Jog (the latter presenting a vocal track featuring Nick Sanborn).
With all these artists freely spending their time and contributing their talent to this project, Hawgood decided that all proceedings of this release would go the Archway Foundation, a UK charity organisation ‘who serve those hurt by loneliness’.
In fact, that could be said about the music itself, too. This diverse set of contemporary ambient/experimental music never sounds ‘dark’ or ‘lonely’. It’s adventurous, exciting and worth investigating….in the way the kid on the cover photograph may feel.
By the way: “A Film by Cheihei Hatakeyama” is also included as the opening track in the “Subversion Guest Mix”