Laurel Halo ‎- Dust

    Laurel Halo – Dust

    25 Feb

    By

    Label: Hyperdub ‎– HDBLP036
    Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Gatefold
    Country: UK
    Released: 2017
    Genre: Electronic
    Style: UK Garage, Future Jazz, Ambient, Experimental

    Berlin based Laurel Halo is a name I’d been familiar with but had always considered her work too left-field or impenetrable for me. I found her earlier work to be lacking focus, electronic bleeps and bloops for the sake of it. Last year I stumbled across her feature on the Amoeba “What’s in My Bag?” YouTube series. Impressed by her album picks and deep jazz knowledge, I was inspired to check out her 2017 album Dust.

    It’s essentially an electronic dance album, but the rhythms are disjointed and quirky, the samples throw you into a strange almost psychedelic head-space and the beats feel like could fall apart at any moment.  Laurel Halo pulls from a variety of styles including 90s House Music, Dub, Jazz and there’s even some Latin percussion and spaced out saxophones in “Arschkriecher”.  It’s a heady mix that sometimes sounds like a combination of Flying Lotus, Bjork or even hints of Arthur Russell on Calling out of Context.

    The treated vocals are a highlight for me, asking strange questions or abstract statements but sung with emotion. These little phrasings served as signposts throughout the album and really keep everything tied together, they provide a neat contrast to the spacey samples bubbling underneath.

    There’s definitely some jazzy undertones going on here too, most evident on some fantastic electric piano vibraphone playing on the track Nicht Onke Risiko. By alternating tracks between tightly packed shuffling percussion to open ethereal keys and samples it’s easy to imagine the music is floating in sort of spacey anti-gravity room.

    Upon first listen it can sound quite disorientating and hard to grasp, but when it hits, it’s a hugely rewarding visceral listen.

    P.S Bonus points for having one of the coolest designed contrasting gatefold sleeves I have seen.

    Track listing

    Sun To Solar 5:35
    Jelly 4:56
    Koinos 2:52
    Arschkriecher 1:35
    Moontalk 4:26
    Nicht Ohne Risiko 1:43
    Who Won? 3:45
    Like An L 3:58
    Syzygy 6:30
    Do U Ever Happen 5:16
    Buh-bye 3:25
    Who Won? (Acapella) 3:23

    Tags:
    Print page