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rust | sea

by Wraith vs Wrath

/
1.
rust 31:46
2.
sea 28:16

about

Ian Hawgood and Ben Jones met on their first day at university and have been making music in bands and together ever since. Ian and Ben originally ran Home Normal together between 2009 and 2011, and Ben rejoined to support the label in 2023.

During university, Ian and Ben joined a handful of punk and rock bands, but annoyed their bandmates by creating wild noise and ambient textures using their four-track and various old effects pedals rather than straight up guitar and drums (their respective instruments). They decided to ditch the bands and instead annoy their housemates by creating a studio space in their bedrooms and laundry room, with drums, a hammond organ and massive amps in the hallway, and record as much noisy stuff as humanly possible in that time on four-track tape.

Ben quit the drums due to tinnitus and Ian moved (back) to Japan in 2007, yet they still managed to collaborate when Ian returned home on breaks, focusing on quiet ambient music and recording in the forest and fields near where Ben lived. Alongside this they also recorded in a lot of environments such as temples, by the sea, the city and anywhere they could on Ben's trips to Japan earlier between 2007 and 2009.

Their music was originally released as Lost Lanterns (Resting Bell) utilising field recordings and minimal synth loops. It was around this time that as Ben and Ian were able to go back to making more tape-based work that they created their Wraith vs Wrath moniker to put together four long form ambient noise works as kex, lux, rust, and sea. The first of these (kex | lux) was released in a one hundred CD edition on Ian's own KOMU label exclusviely with independent stores across Japan, selling out immediately. Originally mastered by the great James Plotkin it became a very popular release marked as ambient-noise in a fervent scene at the time in Tokyo.

After coming across the mixes for all the tracks, they decided to lightly remaster these from the original tapes and reels they were mixed on and are presenting these four ambient-noise pieces in two separate albums: 'kex | lux' and 'rust | sea'. These were the only pieces created as Wraith vs Wrath.

In 2023, Ian and Ben tied up a series of works over 20 years in production that was more focused on pure ambient and drone music. This work as 'sea + i' sees its first release 'anew' out on New Year's Day 2024, with a series of albums and long form pieces released on Home Normal throughout 2024 and 2025 as Ben and Ian come back to the label together to curate a new path of experimental analog ambient music together.

Thank you

credits

released December 30, 2023

All music written and produced by Ian Hawgood and Ben Jones
Mastered by Ian Hawgood
Photography by Ian Hawgood

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Home Normal Brighton And Hove, UK

USE CODE 'weare15' at checkout for 15% off EVERYTHING! :)

Hello

We release organic ambient music. We are fifteen years old this year.

Currently based in Brighton (UK), we were founded in Tokyo (JP) where most of our music can be bought in small physical editions.

Thank you

Physical:

* Objects and Sounds (BE)

* Norman Records (UK)

* P*Dis (JP)

* Linus Records (JP)
... more

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