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NORMIL HAWAIIANS

Normil Hawaiians

Empires Into Sand

    ‘Empires into Sand’ is the first album of new material from Normil Hawaiians in 40 years. The group first refined their sound during the early 80s, hitting on a pastoral experimentalism that drew on ambient drone, motorik impulse and post-punk pep.

    ‘Empires into Sand’ came together in the familiar manner of their original three albums, with improvisation and nuance informing the blueprint of the tracks. It was with the official release of this last record ‘Return of the Ranters’ (originally recorded in 1984/85, but then unconsciously shelved) in 2015 by Upset The Rhythm that led to the group reconnecting with the intention of playing music together again. Normil Hawaiians played a launch show for that ‘lost album’ and followed that up with more concerts, including an appearance at Supernormal, a residency at the Edinburgh Festival, gigs at Cafe OTO. They were even chosen by Richard Dawson to perform with him in London.

    Throughout this time, Normil Hawaiians revisited their original songs for live performance. However for a group always so interested in evolving their sound, it came as no surprise that they shirked at the idea of a faithful retread. The band pushed their songs into new inventive dimensions, still progressive at core, but now imbued with a cosmic uncanny. A cinematic approach that was always quietly present has come to the fore. The quaint weirdness of folk song, the humanity of communal practice and the group’s ecological mindedness have all found a place in Normil Hawaiians’ current sound world.

    When Normil Hawaiians write and record music they prefer to gather in a remote location and live together for a while, such is their communal ethos. Being far-flung across the UK, the Family Hawaii (numbering seven key members) decided to encamp to Tayinloan, a small village on the west coast of the Kintyre peninsula in Scotland. They set up their own studio in an isolated, windswept house overlooking the sea and started the tape rolling. Noel Blanden from the band explains the process neatly: “we set up and began playing, slowly and patiently, allowing the music to take its own shape based on where we were staying and our ongoing friendship. We recorded for days, capturing everything. A lot of new and rich ideas began to emerge”.

    Normil Hawaiians took their time to develop these threads at their own pace, allowing songs to mutate and settle over months. Simon Marchant deftly produced and recorded the album whilst also performing in the band, this marked the first time the band had total control of their own sound. The last few years has seen the band reconvene in Herne Bay, Faversham, London and Leith to record new parts, constantly responding to the changing form of these quietly spectral songs of defiance.

    ‘Empires into Sand’ incorporates samples from old rehearsals and live music into the new finished pieces, this is in continuum with their previous records. Snippets of sound from the static of short wave radio and satellite transmissions also embellish the work. In fact the whole album is stitched together with interludes, creating an acutely immersive 45 minutes. ‘Exiles’ opens the album amid swirling atmospheres, synth flights and recordings of Vilnis Egle (father of Zinta Egle from the band) retelling his experience of fleeing his home in Latvia during Soviet occupation in 1942. George Bikandy also features on this track talking about his flight from Syria in 2014. ‘Ghosts of Ballochroy’ is a winding river of a song featuring a lively discourse in Scots courtesy of Rodney Relax. There’s a commitment to truth telling present across this hopeful album populated with angels, incoming tides, long shadows and the rose-washed sun. “From our broken windscreen, we feel the breeze” soars Guy Smith triumphantly over the driving beat of ‘Waterfalls : Bedford 330’. ‘Big City Sky’ flutters and sparkles with rapid synth runs, tape-looped drums and Jimmy Miller’s commanding vocal. With ‘In The Stone’ Zinta’s melody is deliberately jagged and blunt, exaggerated by octave-layered vocals and interjections from Guy.

    This is thought-provoking, boundary-bothering music. Honest in intent, a solidarity of vision. The album’s title is derived from a poem by band member Mark Tyler, who sadly passed away during the recording process and the transience of life is felt heavily throughout. Noel best coins the group’s wish for the album: “we wanted to create an album that acknowledges our history and also reflects who we are today. We remained true to ourselves and we wanted to make something beautiful without removing the edges.” ‘Empires into Sand’ certainly does that, it’s an echo from the past, an echo from the future.


    TRACK LISTING

    SIDE A
    01. Exiles
    02. Ghosts Of Ballochroy (ft. Rodney Relax)
    03. Waves NR728524
    04. Back Home To The Stars
    SIDE B
    05. Waterfalls / Bedford 330
    06. We Stand Together
    07. Big City Sky
    08. In The Stone (Luddenham Mix)
    09. North Atlantic

    CD Bonus Tracks
    (The LP Version Will Also Feature These Via The Download Card.)
    10. Where Is Living?
    11. Ornament Of The Tribe
    12. In The Stone (Scratch Mix)
    13. Deep Beneath Snow

    Normil Hawaiians

    Dark World

      ‘Dark World’ collects together choice material from Normil Hawaiians’ formative early years of 1979-1981. Tagging along with the band from their peppy post-punk origins (so brilliantly debuted on ‘The Beat Goes On’) into the looser, dubbier territories that laid the foundations for the group’s landmark album ‘More Wealth Than Money’.

      ‘Dark World’ gathers the group’s energetic 7” singles on Dining Out and Illuminated Records, their metamorphic ‘Gala Failed’ EP (Red Rhino) and a lively last-minute Peel session from 1980, alongside outtakes, rarities and demos.

      During this feverish time, founding member Guy Smith was motivated to make music that reveled in always trying out different things. Normil Hawaiians was a very fluid ensemble at this point, Guy often accompanied by Kev Armstrong and Jim Lusted encouraged saxophones, violins, synths, pianos and a select pack of female backing singers to take their post-punk sound into wilder directions. One of the earliest line-ups of Normil Hawaiians featured a 15-year old Janet Armstrong on vocals alongside Guy, ‘Ventilation’ best showcases her deadpan digressions. Janet went on to sing alongside David Bowie a few years later on his breathtaking mid-80’s gem ‘Absolute Beginners’. By this point Kev Armstrong was also guesting for Bowie on guitar duties too.

      Another guest to join the ranks of Normil Hawaiians during this fertile time of cross-pollination was Bertie Marshall (aka Berlin of the proto-punk Bromley Contingent). ‘Sang Sang’ is a good example of how he was inspired to deliver his poetic treatises over the band’s atmospheric, floating improvisations. Bertie’s impressionistic influence helped the group uncouple further from rock tropes, as they became restless and more rhythmically-focused. ‘Still Obedient’ fidgets, soars and careens across the dancefloor, “if you’re ahead close your eyes, you won’t notice the subtitles” chants Guy.

      By the end of this transformative two years Normil Hawaiians had spun an exceptional chrysalis around themselves. The dark world surrounding wouldn’t win out, they’d eaten-up the music and grown continuously, wrote and recorded rapidly, covered Zappa & even David Lynch and could feel the light beginning to shine through. ‘Dark World’ is a snapshot of a band in flux, finding their feet, stretching their limbs. Normil Hawaiians cover an awful amount of ground in such a short time-frame on this record and these tracks document all the glittering debris from their magpie’s nest. Emergent, hopeful and resistant in sound and ethic.


      TRACK LISTING

      LP Tracklisting:
      01. Dark World
      02. Coincidence
      03. The Beat Goes On
      04. Ventilation
      05. In Heaven
      06. Uncle Green Genes (Peel Session)
      07. Memories (Peel Session)
      08. Levels Of Water
      09. Obedience
      10. Sang Sang
      11. The Return
      12. Party Party
      13. Still Obedient
      14. Should You Forget
      + (8 Bonus Tracks Included On Download Card Too)

      CD Tracklisting:
      01. Dark World
      02. The Beat Goes On (demo Version)
      03. Coincidence
      04. I Wanna
      05. In Heaven
      06. The Beat Goes On (7” Single Version)
      07. Ventilation
      08. Outside
      09. Levels Of Water (Peel Session)
      10. Uncle Green Genes (Peel Session)
      11. Memories (Peel Session)
      12. The Beat Goes On (Peel Session)
      13. Obedience
      14. Levels Of Water
      15. Sang Sang
      16. The Return
      17. Party Party
      18. Still Obedient
      19. Should You Forget
      20. Exhibit
      21. I Feel Like
      22. In Buttered Pieces

      Normil Hawaiians

      In The Stone / Where Is Living?

        First new music from the renowned post-punk group Normil Hawaiians since 1985.
        A pressing of 500 copies only for the world.

        When Upset The Rhythm released Normil Hawaiians’ lost album ‘Return Of The Ranters’ back in 2015, the band members got back in touch with each other after a 30 year break and starting playing music together again. Out of this the group played a launch show for the album and followed that up with more concerts, including an appearance at Supernormal, a residency at the Edinburgh Festival, gigs at Cafe OTO and supporting Richard Dawson in London too. They even recently toured Greece in support of having all three of their renowned exploratory post-punk albums finally back in print.

        Throughout this time, Normil Hawaiians revisited their original songs for these live performances. However for a group always so interested in evolving their sound and seeking nuance, it comes as no surprise that they shirked the idea of a faithful retread of old material in favour of reimagining their songs. The group experimented by pushing their songs into new inventive dimensions, still progressive at heart, but now imbued with a cosmic uncanny. A cinematic, even pastoral approach that was always quietly present has come to the fore. The quaint weirdness of folk song, the humanity of communal practice and the group’s ecological mindedness have all found a place in Normil Hawaiians’ current sound world. With this conducive atmosphere brewing, the band’s first new songs in decades started to emerge.

        Being far-flung across the UK, the Family Hawaii encamped to Tayinloan, a small village on the west coast of the Kintyre peninsula in Scotland with the intention of recording new music. They set up their own studio in an isolated, windswept house overlooking the sea and started the tape rolling. Noel Blanden from the band explains how the spirit of the location was such an inspiration to the group during this initial recording session: “Our time immersed in the place and the unique energy it generated in us allowed us to write ‘In The Stone’. It goes right back to our first album, this need to document experience before it passes over and eludes us. We were grabbing at the musical ether and letting it shape itself through the band.” From loose, improvised sessions and reflective periods of listening in Tayinloan, Normil Hawaiians captured the moment. ‘In The Stone’ is a motorik thrill of distorted guitars, locked rhythms and morphic resonance. Guy Smith is joined by Zinta Egle on vocals, skilfully sharing lyrics informed by Alan Garner and Nigel Kneale’s ideas around recurring events being linked to place and historical artefact; a kind of residual haunting known as ‘Stone Tape’ theory. In keeping with the context of the song, sounds from several previous live recordings of the track were woven into its present being. Flipside ‘Where is Living?’ is a decidedly more delicate affair of questioning lyrics and eerie traces, droning strings and impressions smudged. This resultant 7” is a tantalising glimpse of Normil Hawaiians now, an echo from the past, an echo from the future.


        Normil Hawaiians

        What's Going On?

          Upset The Rhythm present a reissue of Normil Hawaiians' What's Going On?, originally released in 1984. To Normil Hawaiians, getting out of lockstep with Thatcherism seemed imperative. Adding to an overriding sense of anxiety, close friend and band associate Martin Pawson took his life in July 1983. Following More Wealth Than Money, released on Illuminated Records in 1982, there was an impetus to make good on hard won achievements. Rehearsal and writing sessions resumed in the early months of 1983 at Intergalactic Arts Studios. IGA was a ramshackle, semi-residential rehearsal space.

          Illuminated Records had been sending artists to Foel Studios in Powys, Wales for years, and it had become a kind of refuge for the Hawaiians. Studio owner/manager Dave Anderson (Hawkwind/Amon Düül II) was welcoming, unruffled, and accommodating when around a dozen band members, friends, and family emerged from the "mini-peace convoy" of vehicles into the hazy, pastoral care of the warm, Welsh countryside. Whereas More Wealth Than Money had evolved in the recording studio, What's Going On began to develop as a more pre-meditated, albeit piecemeal work. "Quiet Village" and the unreleased "Outpost" had already been finished at Foel in February 1983.

          Recording Engineer Brian Snelling recalls how the Hawaiians approach to making the album was unconventional and spontaneous, reveling in chance and openness. Rehearsal tapes from IGA were played along to, and improvisations allowed to develop, with further layers of sound accreting (as can be heard on "Big Lies"). "Free Tibet" was created by the band playing together exploratively with Snelling waiting to hit "Record" until he heard that something interesting was coalescing. He recalls the sessions being initially unorthodox, but eventually settling into a friendly, productive, and very familial affair. Mixed tapes were then taken by Dave Andersen and Guy Smith to Charly Records' editing studio in London. Here they spliced the recordings into an irregular yet coherent, flowing work. Final masters were then EQ'd and cut by Graeme Durham at the newly opened Exchange Mastering Studios in Camden. And then nothing happened. Unbeknownst to the band, Illuminated Records were getting into deep financial problems. The label gave the band 250 copies, but the record shops wouldn't touch them -- the company had been blacklisted. This intricate, challenging and engaging work had been failed by poor circumstance. 

          TRACK LISTING

          01. Quiet Village
          02. Martin
          03. Slaves
          04. Louise Michel
          05. Ignorance Is Strength
          06. Big Lies
          07. South Atlantic
          08. Going Down
          09. Market Place
          10. Free Tibet

          Bonus Tracks
          11. The Outpost (unreleased Single, A-side, Feb 1983)
          12. Quiet Village (unreleased Single, B-side, Feb 1983)
          13. Oggere (album Out-take)
          14.The Fog [Eddie Waring Mix] (album Out-take)
          15. Alice (album Out-take)
          16. Louise Michel (live At DOK, Edinburgh, Aug 2017)
          17. Big Lies


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