It's 7:15am on Easter Saturday & I am on a train bound for Glasgow so I can participate in Record Store Day 2014. The sun is in the sky as I depart from Motherwell station. I am listening to "a home for you" by Good Weather for an Airstrike, Tom Honey's ambient music project, and I genuinely cannot think of a more appropriate album to listen to.
"a home for you" by Good Weather for an Airstrike, released on Honey’s Hawkmoon Records label, is a tribute to the recent birth of his twins ... and what a fitting tribute it is.
"a home for you" demonstrates a real progression as an artist and is possibly Honey’s best work to date. It features 55 minutes of inventive, imaginative, soulful ambient music. These are heartfelt soundscapes, tracks that speak of not only Honey’s love for his craft but his subject matter too ... the overwhelming, obsessive love that considers the small details as well as the big picture.
From the use of a field recording of heartbeats from the twins’ scan as percussive layer on the opening track - "Lungs" - to the sound of the seashore on "a song for Libby" ... real care has been poured into this record.
"Awaiting your arrival" is a deliciously floaty track that just oozes anticipation and is simply gorgeous as a result. As is Honey’s collaboration with Inachus - "Breathing" - a lullaby of sorts, it moves from a floaty ambient piece to present the most delightful of melodies about half way through. I want this melody on a music box to give to my wife! Yes, it's that lovely.
Whilst Honey's obsession with the seashore is not for the weak / full bladdered, his use of these field recordings on "clutch" is inspired, providing a fitting connection from "a song for Libby" and allowing the album to flow to - "Tides" - a piano-orientated delight that opens with a cascade of notes before the synths arrive to gild the listener’s ears with audio gold. "Tides" is wonderfully euphoric and hope-filled, with a fragility that demonstrates the impressive use of dynamics.
"The slowest journey" should be apt for an early-morning train ride into Glasgow but, for some reason, this train is rattling into town. It is beautiful introduction to the closing song but shouldn't be overlooked. Sequenced synths create a heady, hypnotic wall-of-sound that is simply divine ... an exquisite sound that is over way too soon ... but one that leads to the 15 minute opus "Welcome home".
"Welcome home" is an ambient masterpiece ... a floaty, dreamy synth longform drone soundscape that could have easily stood alone as a single-track release ... but then I have a particular fascination for longform drones.
All in, "a home for you" by Good Weather for an Airstrike is a brilliant release & well worth checking out. I said earlier that this may possibly be Tom Honey's best release ... as I listen to the album again on my way out of Glasgow (after a successful RSD outing) I am convinced ... this IS Honey’s best to date ... and a promising indication of what's to come.
Well done Tom & congrats to you & your wife on the birth of your twins.
Tx
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