Laurel Halo

Debut album coming out in May on Hyperdub, new EP as King Felix out on Liberation Technologies very shortly. Looking forward to hearing both of these, probably time for her own thread.

http://new.assets.thequietus.com/images/articles/8317/laurel_halo_quarantine_1332348513_crop_550x550.jpg

^ Cover of the album (Quarantine) is O_O btw

http://3fram.es/gifs/B/bXt.gif

I am anticipating the hell out of this. Hour Logic was one of my favourite moments of 2011. Thank you, Sandbox post-Knife electronica thread (even though I don't think she really fit in that genre, I loved the heck out of the stuff that was posted.)

(Philip K Dick refs and all)

Hour Logic was one of my favourite moments of 2011

Yeah yeah, damn right! I was a little dismissive of the second half of that record, but I've been re-listening lately and boy, am I a big dummy. Quarantine is supposed to be more song-based and along the lines of the 'King Felix' EP from 2010.

I think that, on the basis of last year's releases, I like her sounds and textures a lot more than anything she actually does with them, but will give this a listen.

No, that record went really interesting places, the first half was perhaps more immediate, but where it ended up fascinated me, it was like it took you round corners and ran off in different directions.

Yeah, excited about this one. That cover is AMAZING.

OMG I didn't even see the cover. The WTFness... but also... beautiful. Head hurts.

i need to go back to her stuff, i didn't fully get into hour logic before my hard drive died and i lost it.

i LOVE her vocal on games' "strawberry skies"

I think my fave track on Hour Logic was actually the title track, which is, like a 9 minute trance epic that stops mid-stream and goes somewhere else at least twice during the course of the song (...and gets lost in the jetstream)

A couple of nice things she's done outside of her two EPs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOth11wGCnM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RAYvwxdhNjc

finally listened to that widely-praised EP from last year, wondering why I hadn't previously

The first couple of tracks off the new King Felix ep are up on Soundcloud:

http://soundcloud.com/liberationtechnologies

kind of a weird deployment of the makoto aida pic but stoked

i kno' nooothin of her previous ep's and stuff, but this "quarantine" collection moves me, grooves me, woos me mo' and mo' with every listen.

Laurel Halo: Quarantine, streaming here: http://soundcloud.com/factmag/laurel-halo-quarantine/s-3eAaW

Looking forward to checking it out, but have to wait until I get home :(

excited!

Couldn't get that stream to work btw, but it plays alright embedded in this page:

http://www.factmag.com/2012/05/15/stream-quarantine-laurel-halos-debut-album-for-hyperdub/

Oh, stream seems to be working fine for me!

Wow, vocals on this are certainly interesting.

Oh no. I'm about ten minutes in, and I don't think I like it that much. It's nowhere near as beat oriented as the stuff on the EPs that I really liked. Maybe I should listen to it on better headphones, but this isn't really doing anything for me so far. I keep hoping it will improve and it just kind of meanders.

liveblog: it's picking up at the halfway mark, with that backwards vocal piece into the most rhythmic + interesting track so far

I'm about halfway in, and I'm getting something which sounds like a choir of crying babies? Not feeling it.

this is not even remotely like her eps and remixes but it's... totally awesome?

sort of love the multilayered vocals meeting up with strange, incomplete ambience

Great record. But the vocals are definitely confronting, feels untreated, emotionally direct, at times jarring. Maybe I'll report back have a few more listens.

There's some beautiful moments though: Light + Space, Holoday, Years.

Wow. This is really odd compared to the last EP. I'm getting kinda Nico vibes from it which I never would have expected prior to listening. Interesting.

Has anyone kept without throughout the last fortnight or so and can say how it sounds after ten listens?

Gotta say I'm more intrigued to see what this is like live - due to see her at Field Day next week.

Has anyone kept without throughout the last fortnight or so and can say how it sounds after ten listens?

even better now. weirdly compelled to listen to it.

Good. Just listened it through for the first time. I guess she likes The Marble Index, right?

yea? never thought of that :/

Oh, this is exciting! I really liked Hour Logic.

Scared away by the previews on the Hyperdub site, but loving Hour Logic at the mo. Very good for walking around big cities in the rain. Rory Gibb talks a lot about internet living in relation to her work in his quietus review of the new one, tho I find that reading a bit tired and untrue to my experience of her music. May give it a go when I'm feeling more adventurous.

New one sounds pretty nice.

i liked hour logic but this isn't doing it for me. seems kind of uncomfortably insular.

Hour Logic is such a great record. Seems better and better every time I return to it.

Blown away by Quarantine. What a FANTASTIC album this is.

Seems I've missed some backstory here...

wow, i'd liked her stuff before but this new album might be the worst music i've heard this year. it's just...gross-sounding

AND it's nothingy

takes a few plays for it to click, but i think it's great

To be honest, I nearly turned it off halfway through Years - those vocals! - but something about it was so "off", that it held my interest a while longer. As some reviewers have mentioned, I like the stark separation between the murky soup of the music and the untreated rawness of the vocals. Only played it twice - once late at night, when it stopped me going to bed, and once mid-morning, when it stopped me getting any work done. Arrestingly original.

I've not really found her previous records to be that interesting so the fact this is proving so divisive is kinda intriguing.

To be honest, I nearly turned it off halfway through Years - those vocals!

i nearly tweeted at that point "is there ANY point in me continuing with this piece of shit" but i soldiered on and it got no better. seriously those vocals are unlistenable and the music is completely insubstantial, in a vaguely queasy out-of-tune way. and has she put any thought into the structure of any track> it seems completely directionless and random.

i don't really think there's a separation b/w the vox and the music, nothing of consequence happens it either, and it doesn't happen in a horrible-sounding way.

it's definitely the worst album i've sat all the way through this year.

I feel like I'm going to have to give it another cursory listen if/when it turns up on Spotify but this album really was one of the biggest disappointments of the year so far.

And in a year of so many solid releases (SVIIB! Grimes! Dawn Richard! I'm hoping I get to add Cooly G! to this list, Coldplay cover or no) the idea of having to put time and effort into something I found so initially ... revolting (not even in the sense of gross, in the sense of, my ears revolted against having to hear it) just doesn't seem particularly like a good way of spending my time.

I definitely can relate, but it's strange since it also feels calculated and intentional.

Oh, I'm sure that it is! I just don't want to put it in mine ears.

it definitely seems calculated and deliberate - i LOVE halo's vox on games' "strawberry skies" so it's not like this is all she can do with her voice

which makes it worse, i almost feel offended that she expects people to accept work this shoddy

I'm only three songs in but I'm finding something somewhat beguiling in all of this, like her vocals are in tune until such point as she decides she wants them not to be, but I'm not sure that's necessarily interesting in itself and I've no idea whether or not the album in general will hold up once the initial weirdness factor has worn off.

I should say disorientation rather than weirdness, it seems to be intentionally disorienting.

Airy and nothing seems to be the default choice for electronic-leaning indie vocalist types this year and I'm not sure I need another record in that vein.

Wanting to go back to this less and less and less. Shame, b/c after Hour Logic I was really looking fwd to this album. 'Strawberry Skies' is magical as well.

xp re "airy and nothing"... absolutely, and it's a style which usually leaves me cold (at best) or infuriates me (at worst)... but there's something else going on here which, to my ears, rises above all of that. (This year's other prime example of "an album I rate in a genre I hate": Beach House - Bloom.)

currently in absolute stitches at how terrible this is

lex otm

found this album well-listenable, and was compelled to purchase it after a month of getting familiar w/it.

Don't know that they're really comparable, but quarantine feels like oneohtrix point never's latest direction (replica), though quarantine is catchier. Maybe that's a stretch, and maybe her vocals mar it but on the whole it works. Don't think it "nothingy" at all, in fact it's well-crafted and cohesive. Liked the bit (in some interview, pitchfork?) about her trying out reverbed-out vocals at first and then just going w/them dry/grating instead. Maybe just high, and haven't listened to hour logic yet. "carcass" got a neat mbv-interlude vibe to it.

meant to say that i couldn't get into replica at all, where this keeps compelling to replay. whoa, "tumor" is kinda hard to stomach, but then that welcome, blissed-out piano chord (morcom) follows up on it

"nerve" got that warm, bendy, boards-y, christ.-y interlude thing going on, too. blissed out sounds throughout this thing.

this record feels like she's been listening to the latest prefuse 73 pretty much non-stop, or maybe that's just me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABCgiQYSEM4

i really like "carcass" tho.

Read an interview with her in Stool Pigeon yesterday. Couple of quotes:

“When I was making this record, I was thinking a lot about isolation, so it always conjured these images of being in an anechoic chamber or a vacuum, or inside some pressurised tank. Which led to aeroplanes and lapping up recycled air, and the toxicity of office places or schools, where disease is just cycling around the air ducts.”

And:

“I wanted to make the vocal sound inhuman, while obviously coming from a human place. Just kind of stripped bare and ugly, with all of its qualities and all of its flaws. That cognitive dissonance between the really placid, peaceful, enveloping, evolving synthetic textures, with this kind of cutting vocal, it creates a nice dynamic.”

can't deny the similarities to that prefuse 73 youtube, but the prefuse track sounds muddled, where quarantine has a sort of polished humidity and conciseness to it. opening track (bassline) on quarantine always suggests "captain of her heart" in my head.

I'm not completely sold on Laurel's new vocal approach, but it's an interesting idea - daring, original, maybe not "pleasant" to listen to though. I'm going to dare to draw comparisons with the Farrah Abraham album - not that they're coming from the same direction or even same place on the map at all - but the way that vocals can be used in such bizarre ways, highlighting their ugliness. In the case of Farrah, an effect has been applied to either disguise or embellish an amateurish vocal while having the opposite effect, of leaving it fractured, strangulated, barely recognisable as human. Conversely, Laurel purposefully left her own vocals completely untreated and the effect (to our reverb/compression attenuated ears) is just as jarring. Two sides of two different coins I guess.

found this album well-listenable, and was compelled to purchase it after a month of getting familiar w/it.

still agree with this comment.

I keep coming back to this album, the vocal style is no different from a lot of Bjork stuff from the Volta era.

Enjoying this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVjuwcY_iPQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icQreafuvYw

^ this is fantastic, how did I miss it before now?

press play if you want avant garde house piano

NYMAN HOUSE

I want myself some Nyman House, yes please.

Love that track.

The new EP is excellent throughout

Oh, there's some background on the piano in this (excellent) Spin article:

http://www.spin.com/articles/laurel-halo-talks-turbulence-techno-and-her-moving-new-hyperdub-ep/

How explicit a "piano house" reference are the pianos in "Throw" meant to be?

Those pianos were recorded in London. I was recording in this studio for a few days, and they brought in a piano in the middle of the second day of recording. It was this janky old upright piano and it had just been moved, so it was super out of tune. Obviously I saw this out-of-tune, watery, evil-sounding piano, and I was like, "Fuck, I have to jam on that for a bit!" So I sat down to play at the piano, and it was really difficult, actually. Because it was so out of tune, all of the known harmonic spatial relationships were completely gone. A G was somewhere between a B-flat and a B, like a quarter-tone up from B, but it also had a harmonic that sounded like an F. One key sounded like it was a tritone. It was really strange! So I was just trying to find these chords, and it was a really interesting exercise, because it took me a while. I grew up playing piano, and it's easy for you to get into these old habits, like I always do this one chord progression, I always do this thing, or I always do that thing. So it was cool playing on this out-of-tune piano, because it helped me find these chords that I probably wouldn't be able to make on a perfectly in-tune piano.

Piano tracks are fucking amazing, obviously. So I was happy to be able to make a piano track with a very mean, evil piano. It's pretty incongruous with the traditional notion of these elated, anthemic, uplifting piano sounds. I mean, sinister piano has been done before, this is not a revelation of any kind.

ayo new one streaming on pforks:
http://pitchfork.com/advance/264-chance-of-rain/

http://www.dummymag.com/features/laurel-halo-interview?utm_content=buffera260f&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

"It sounds like a bunch of MP3s were dumped into a vat of acid and they’re all screaming in pain.”

I'm finding this one a bit difficult to grasp. I've tried a couple of times, but so far just keep waiting for it to be over.

http://thewire.co.uk/img/scale/460/561/2013/10/15/wire357.jpg

not sure how i feel about all of this yet (it's very hard and unyielding) but "ainnome" is gorgeous in the way hour logic was

title track sounded great on first listen. only had half my attention cos of work but iirc it's the one that incorporates the same jazzy piano that start and finish the album.

Holy fuck this record is dope.

Halo's fast becoming my favourite electronic performer of the moment.

it's like everything I always wanted out of an autechre record but never quite got

It definitely ticks a few of the same boxes - especially on an intellectual/sound-art/deconstructive level although I'd say they approach it from slightly different angles.

I was totally shocked when there was some interview and she said she was nervous about meeting this producer because she admired him so much and the producer was ... Dabrye?

that's not shocking, Dabrye is dope

i'll have to take another listen then

two/three by dabrye is the one (there's an instrumental version of it too if you dislike rappers). the earlier stuff is a bit leaden.

This is brilliant. Keeps all the queasy delirium of Quarantine but manages to be fun and accessible despite the obvious sense of experimentation. I could easily see myself dancing to this in a nightclub, it's very sweaty and jacks hard, but it's also really engaging as a home listen in its weird metallic textures.

otm

I actually worked out to it a couple days ago and it was killer

I've only listened to this a couple of times but it promises to be another fantastic piece of work from Halo.

I could easily see myself dancing to this in a nightclub

Sort of related but I really want to hear something from the Behind the Green Door 12" on a club system, especially "Sex Mission".

Sex Mission is a great ridiculous name for a track as well. On their RA mix earlier this year, Blondes drop it alongside other straight up club tracks and it definitely works.

new album is real lush.. mastering is excellent, sounds great at high volume. could be way off, but some of the percussion recalls the (dry, direct) sound qualities of untilted by autechre, but softer-edged. Not sure if this can be attributed to her use of the Elektron machinedrum, or if autechre even used one on untilted. Wouldn't compare them otherwise, as this rides easier, doesn't feel over-laboured.

I really like how immersive some of her stuff is. Like, I can switch off completely to a Laurel Halo release and just drift away... Sort of the opposite of being really engaged and aware (which I have to do with Autechre), it works best when I'm just nodding off or what have you - it's very visual.

went from tentative to thinking this record rules, at times it sounds like an instrumental underworld record

i like some of the watery hues but the songs on this haven't really grabbed me all that much just yet. or at least i haven't quite grasped them - quite slippery music isn't it?

this record rules. I could go for some more electric piano tho.

really enjoying this.

serendip is amazing, so heavy.

That track 'Throw' with the detuned piano really reminds me of something - I think it's Polygon Window-era Aphex.

Still play Chance of Rain all the time. A truly great record imo.

yeah, i forgot about it because i've been rediscovering Quarantine but it is really good.

I really want a whole record of music that sounds like Dr Echt/Out, so beautiful

Double EP being released end of this month.

http://www.residentadvisor.net/news.aspx?id=31354

good news. that Nebenwirkungen is real nice.

Just ordered Chance of Rain and Quarantine today. I'm behind. New songs sound great.

Got In Situ in the mail today. Listening now. . .

like the new tracks, looking forward to this

Really like this new stuff quite a bit. A lot to take in at once, but I think I'd rank it at least as high as Chance of Rain right off the bat.

I listen to Chance of Rain in the gym on a regular basis -- hard to say why it makes a good workout record, but I never liked the pressure of "motivational" workout music.

Man In Situ is really good.

Yep, it's really excellent.

really like the new one, fantastically empty, something I find myself just wanting to inhabit for a while

'Found I'!!

That one's definitely going on my picks of the year mixtape.

Listening on youtube now, this is great.

And it even has more jazzy electric piano like the bookends of Chance of Rain, just like I wanted

I love how Focus I sounds like a lounge/acid jazz track only just slightly too heavy and dark.

Sorry, 'Focus I' is what I meant earlier.

Yeah, great track.

man this whole record actually, second time through, fuck it's fantastic

this is a little more dancey than chance of rain, and only in a good way

so i picked up the new one, i quite like it, when she's working in this mode it reminds me a lot of actress

the music is completely insubstantial, in a vaguely queasy out-of-tune way. and has she put any thought into the structure of any track> it seems completely directionless and random.

i don't really think there's a separation b/w the vox and the music, nothing of consequence happens it either, and it doesn't happen in a horrible-sounding way.

― kanye kardashian (lex pretend), Saturday, June 9, 2012 3:24 AM (3 years ago)

i believe the same criticisms were made of actress's recent work

minus the part about the vox

anyway still think "quarantine" is her uneasy-listening masterpiece, and that her best instrumental work is on "hour logic", as for this one it seems slight in comparison to those two. i do agree that "focus i" is the highlight.

i guess "in situ" also feels ... a little anonymous, maybe? i thought a lot of it sounded like pearson sound or a lot of percussive, minimal post-dubstep stuff ... whereas "quarantine" really sounds like nobody else

xposts if it's not clear, lex's criticism was of "quarantine", not the new one

I liked In Situ and I'll take anonymity over those horrible, grating vocals on Quarantine any day. Thank god she decided to move to instrumental music.

I think Chance of Rain is a pretty much perfect album (ask me again in 5 years). i can't really handle the textures of her previous noisier stuff, although i think "supersymmetry" was super catchy and great. love the vocal harmonies there. her super-processed vocals on "just a little pollution" from the frkwys collab disc are marvelous as well.

i like her vocals on quarantine! i don't find them horrible or grating at all. they make me feel a little light-headed, but in a good way.

i will have to look into "chance of rain" and frkwys next, i guess.

i can't really handle the textures of her previous noisier stuff

aquifer??!??

"focus 1" is a jam

I really liked her vocals on Quarantine too. that and Chance of Rain are my favorites

Anyone heard the new thing?

Just listened to it. I have a history with her of "This is interesting, but I know I'm never going to play it again". I was expecting the same outcome after the first couple of tracks but it won me over by the end. There are even a couple of nice pop moments in "Moontalk" (positively jaunty!) and "Do U Ever Happen" (dreamy).

First impressions: Sounds like the closest Halo has come to pop songwriting since "King Felix", but this is still very uniformly slow and with jazzy cut-up beats. Thankfully it's not as much of a trudge as Quarantine though, moreso like a meeting point between her instrumental electronic projects and her vocal explorations.

Do U Ever Happen is indeed v. dreamy

mix from july
https://soundcloud.com/discwoman/discwoman-27-x-laurel-halo

https://assets.boomkat.com/spree/products/517731/large/192562685860.jpg

new record, more ambient than dust

it completely rules

ooooooh, psyched to hear this

Hoping it’s not as alienating as the last one ☝️

haven't heard this yet, looking forward to it!

I heard Yanny

I really liked this new one, enough to push me to revisit her earlier work which I have enjoyed but have trouble recalling after listening

chance of rain is a classic of the 2010s

really psyched for this, obv

Hour logic tho

Damn this is v beautiful and unexpected. Requiem-like at times with echoes of Shostakovich.

Some very otherworldly textures on here. An unusual recording altogether. Don't think I've heard much like it. "The Sick Mind" reminds me of Debussy.

Don’t sleep on king Felix st

Halo wraps 4 tracks around an orchestral loop, with house beats ricocheting off the motif. Last track is purely ambient

Vocals?

Yeah vocals for sure

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/ep/king_felix_f1/spring/

Not to be confused with the king Felix ep by halo

the new record is so elegant, much prefer it to dust. quietude and the sick mind remind me a little of some of blue gene tyranny's electronic stuff and the opener is so wearily gorgeous. this deserves more attention

this is my favorite thing she's done since quarantine but also it feels weird to say that bc neither record is v alike

ppl who hated quarantine were extremely wrong incidentally

dust is my fav thing she’s ever done. gonna listen to this today. i wonder if i will like it!!!!

ppl who hated quarantine were extremely wrong incidentally

― princess of hell (BradNelson), Tuesday, August 7, 2018 10:56 AM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

damn straight

Yes. Quarantine got a lot of unwarranted hate, especially because of the vocal style she chose. Some of Ilm was very snide. I felt like I was at school again.

Dust was cool. Not spent enough time with the new one but it sounded good first time round.

i found dust difficult to get into but i guess i should've just tried harder, it sounds wonderful rn

thisS trippy

It's almost like ambient free jazz

got so excited after listening to dust ] i put on hour logic and then quarantine and wow, these records rule so much, all her records... rule so much?

raw silk feels p minor , but it’s good and will be useful to me

i should relisten to quarantine

Listened up this cranked up on the stereo today followed by the new Pram. It was a good afternoon.

If I like this one, which should I check out next?

I had like 8 intense, meaningful listens to this and then suddenly felt done with it. But nothing wrong with that.

Chance of Rain is my favorite but it’s fairly different from this. Honestly they all are but maybe just work backwards and do Dust next.

Put on Dust, but wasn't digging the vocals, so I switched to Chance of Rain, and I'm liking it much more.

Search: hour logic, in situ, king Felix ep
Antenna, behind the green door, her DJ mixes
King Felix - spring

Destroy: quarantine, sunlight on the faded
Dust

?
quarantine is the best record she ever made

I love Chance of Rain

Wow, damn, Chance of Rain is really good! I had kind of given up on her after the Quarantine hype.

Important to put quarantine in context. It was given attention in indie circles probably due to its eye catching cover but if you followed her music prior it came as a massive surprise. Almost like tilt by Scott walker as opposed to his earlier material. Quarantine sounds nothing like any other halo record until maybe dust came out. Her avant- grade side doesn’t do much for me. King Felix spring is still her best record and slept on so yeah...

vocals on Quarantine are a dealbreaker for me

the whole strange focus on the surreal quality of the vocals and the shunning of expected vocal production are really the amazing things about the album for me

I'm really liking Raw Silk Uncut Wood

I love the closing track on quarantine

Halo has done vocals in many other forms, the ones on quarantine are a little more jagged and raw.

Pop vocal halo : king Felix - ep

Swirling choral vocals used more for texture : king Felix spring ep

i had completely forgotten her vocals worked in and out of hour logic too, i think i thought they were a sample at the time

Absolutely Brad - one of her finest records too

Hour Logic EP taken off Spotify for some dumb reason.

Don't think she will ever top it for me though unless she made a whole album of Strawberry Skies or Holodays.

strawberry skies is dope

also that kuedo - halo collapsing in space remix is some next level shit

Hour logic definitely up there nashwan, hell one song sounds like Tekken music

Carcass is such a motherfucker of a song

I'm revisiting Quarantine for the first time in years because I liked the new album so much. it's so claustrophobic and unpleasant - like it's a great record, but also kind of a jarring experience. I remember allmusic called it like a soundtrack to a science fiction nightmare, which is a good lens to view the record through imo (especially when considering that album cover!)

https://www.residentadvisor.net/images/news/2019/laurel-halo-dj-kicks-album-art.jpg

oh fuck yes

here 4 it

Tracklist
01. Laurel Halo - Public Art
02. Stallone the Reducer - Always Hate
03. Red Axes - 5 Min (Feat. CAR)
04. Parris - Puro Rosaceae
05. Rrose - Cricoid Pressure
06. Machine Woman - Just Made Some Jazz Music
07. WCC - Ana
08. FIT Siegel - Pennyrut
09. Yamaoka - Plastic PQ
10. Siete Catorce – Canto
11. Facta - Poliwhirl
12. Laurel Halo & Hodge - The Light Within You
13. Ikonika - Bodied
14. Griffit Vigo - A.C.I.D (Electronic Gqom Mix)
15. Panda Lassow - Lachowa
16. Dario Zenker - Koraimer Bro
17. Final Cut - Temptation
18. Aos - Violent Light
19. Geoffrey Landers - Brian’s Having a Party
20. Via Maris - Side Effects
21. Laurel Halo - Oneiroi
22. Nick León - Pelican Dub
23. Stefan Ringer - Lust
24. Kirk The Flirt - Loser
25. Laurel Halo - Sweetie (DJ-Kicks)
26. Blake Baxter - Funky World (Blake Baxter Remix)
27. Kiki Kudo - Freakey Keke
28. Group A - Ketabali
29. Whitefield Brothers – Ntu

good tracklist

really cool

she is a great DJ based on the one time I saw her

been playing the heck out of this one

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O5a5rUR2uo

yes that is great, such a shame it is so short

yeah all three are too short

https://youtu.be/Z15xEKpXzSM

https://media.giphy.com/media/Oivne3ir8TzcA/giphy.gif

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z15xEKpXzSM

pretty good

picked up the CD today

first listen: extremely dope

how is it that nickB posted "tru" and "sweetie" six years ago?!?!?

weird browser glitch i guess

second, third listen - still dope

kicks ass

best mix ever

this is kinda getting me high

This is great! Some of her stuff can be a bit too esoteric for me but I think this is very approachable. "Temptation" bangs.

Great mix, although it left me feeling a bit woozy.

right? it's genuinely a mood-alterer.

It doesn't exactly have a lot of moments of firm ground to cling to.

i actually just went through and pulled the unmixed versions of my fave tracks for closer inspection; that would be the Parris, Ikonika, Red Axes/CAR, Nick León, Dario Zenker, Kiki Kudo, Via Maris and Halo originals... most of which hail from the mini-EP I suppose.

I like it a lot and it feels very much like a whole -- there really aren't so much "stand out tracks" for me although there are moments. Especially good toward the end.

TBH though listening to it emphasized to me how much better and more interesting Halo's music is than a lot of her selections.

xp agree

ikonika one is a slapper

whole mix sounds v smudged and dirty

This is pretty much everything I want from a mix. Who else is doing smooth, trippy techno these days?

call super comes to mind

finally listening to this. it's awesome.

it seems like rough machine beats with an electro slap / crack and a lot of texture is very much the techno flavor of the moment doesn't it

She definitely does something to process the tracks in order to make them sound more uniform I think and give them all that “smudged” quality as flopson says. It’s striking how seamless it all is — sometimes I can’t tell what elements are from which track during a transition.

it's just good mixing homes

yea this is really good

she hosted a really awesome nts session recently

i listened to this really stoned last night and it was p wonderful. delighted by "just made some jazz music" every single time

this seems like an ideal thing to listen to really stoned

it's just good mixing homes

Also I'm sure there was some mixing & mastering done on the mix as a whole

this seems like an ideal thing to listen to really stoned

lol yep

I really want to see her live, why do DJs/electronic artists have to do such late shows

um

alexa what is a nightclub

yeah I know dude, I'm just near 40 and would really like for there to be maybe an evening club or something like that

there are upscale events for that kinda stuff of the RBMA variety; i will certainly post here if she's in town, MA

Next best thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yTIeANebtw

London has an afternoon/evening club that ends at 11pm now, I'm going to see Ben Klock there on Saturday and tbh I'm approaching even that with some trepidation at my age.

she's so good live

Really loving the DJ Kicks mix... It's worth noting that if you buy it from Bandcamp, besides the actual mixtape you'll get the original unmixed versions of all the tracks as a bonus! This is something they should with all mixtapes, IMO.

that's a really nice bonus

This thing is unreal

It's worth noting that if you buy it from Bandcamp, besides the actual mixtape you'll get the original unmixed versions of all the tracks as a bonus!

damn was hoping the K&D DJ-Kicks got the same treatment but no. although now I want to buy it on vinyl which ... why. why would I want a mixed album over four sides. but i do.

full sub to the DJ Kicks Bandcamp is £85 for the year which gets you vinyl copies of each release as they come out, as well as streaming and d/ls and access to the archive of the last couple of years of releases. I signed up about a month ago.

how many releases per year at that price?

last year five, the year before that six, so I think you get pretty good value for money

yeah, sounds it.

its the continuous mix on vinyl?

seems weird

not sure what lukas is referring to

both the k&d and laurel halo vinyl are unmixed tracks

https://www.discogs.com/Kruder-Dorfmeister-DJ-Kicks/release/110174

https://www.discogs.com/Laurel-Halo-DJ-Kicks/release/13390242

O!

I'm not trying to dampen anyone's enjoyment or taking anything away from LH, but while I enjoyed the mix, it didn't hit me as anything more special than a good mix? Idk, I hear really good mixes all the time these days (thanks to an overflow of sources like NTS, mix series from media outlets, other internet radio stations, etc).

it's a good mix

Yeah it feels like a good, slightly off-kilter mix but not radically better or worse than a lot of mixes you hear, including in the DJ Kicks series. I guess some of the comments on this thread are coming from people who don't listen to a lot of mixes but really engage with Laurel Halo as an artist? Which is fine, it's a very enjoyable and well put-together mix but I'm not quite feeling the rush.

i listen to most of the dj kicks series; this felt like a standout.

i would say on a technical mixing level good but not particularly special. on the other hand i think her selections are very very good. she has an ear for picking out weird tracks that sound good together. and a lot of the tracks on this were new to me, as were several of the artists, so there's that.

I definitely don't listen to tons of mixes these days, and I was quite surprised how much this one hits a sweet spot for me. I don't at all think she owns this sound and would love more recommendations of similar off-kilter techno mixes.

i listen to a lot of mixes and i think her selections for this have a wild and trippy energy with tons of enigmatic texture and the contrast between tracks is almost always unexpected and frankly bizarre in an electrifying way. i don't hear a lot of mixes that do that. also i don't even know what off-the-charts amazing technically great mixing would even sound like and don't much care to hear it if the selection isn't on par.

a few of the tracks have like an art-punk punch that feels legitimately destabilizing to me in a dance mix. i mean maybe what i don't listen to 'enough' of or whatever is like cutting edge nihilistic bizarre exploratory dance music in which case i'm very grateful for this mix.

a wild and trippy energy with tons of enigmatic texture

This nails exactly what I love about the mix. Reminds me a bit of Magda maybe.

That all makes sense. I definitely remember when it was hard to access mixes, and commercial mixes were my first exposure to anything of the sort. Maybe now that everything is so easily accessible, elevating a mix to release status comes with unfair expectations.

yeah i mean the micro-math of multiple little niche market hype bubbles interacting with each other seems to determine who gets shine among a large number of competent to great djs these days and that can get tiring but i try not to care so much when there are so many opportunities to hear excellent and transporting mix experiences day to day.

its a standout imo

a few of the tracks have like an art-punk punch that feels legitimately destabilizing to me in a dance mix. i mean maybe what i don't listen to 'enough' of or whatever is like cutting edge nihilistic bizarre exploratory dance music in which case i'm very grateful for this mix.

― cheese canopy (map), Wednesday, April 3, 2019 3:00 PM (forty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

totally

I will say I think on a few listens I like the boiler room set posted above more than the DJ Kicks mix.

i am listening to quarantine rn

it is the best album ever

That DJ Kicks mix is still great, it deserves more love

not that into DJ mixes in general, but I really like it

re-reading this thread makes me wonder what Ross is up to

hmmm I'm contemplating running a poll of her catalog.. I'm curious to see how that would turn out

(an album poll, that is, not a ballot poll)

I think I still like Hour Logic the most, because of my attachment to the experience of discovering her work at a time when it felt like it was making a novel and exciting step towards a kind of new idm-ish sound for the 2010s, and was its own thing, before that would become relatively commonplace in the following years.

Quarantine. I'm still really amused how angry some people here got about that record.

King Felix spring is still her best record and slept on so yeah...

― Ross, Wednesday, August 8, 2018 1:04 AM (three years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I just listened to this for the first time in years and it is incredible. Don't remember it hitting me so hard before. The drum programming is virtuosic, the samples and synths lush. All is well for the moment.

The new Caterina Barbieri album giving me massive early LH vibes after a first bandcamp listen.

a lot more vocals that I was expecting, and the way they sit in the mix feels very Quarantine-era Halo.

mix from july
https://soundcloud.com/discwoman/discwoman-27-x-laurel-halo

― Week of Wonders (Ross), Thursday, October 12, 2017 10:39 AM (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

if you haven't heard this mix, you owe it to yourself

she is on another level as a DJ, it's really impressive that every single track stands out in it's own way and the mix is stylistically all over the place, but somehow she manages to make it flow naturally and seamlessly. it's rare to hear something so eclectic that doesn't devolve into chaos.

I think I've said this before but seeing her DJ a few years ago was a great experience, lots of gqom and early bleep tracks, incredible energy

thrilled to announce my first album in five years, Atlas, is coming out September 22 on my new label Awe. You can listen to the first single 'Belleville', a piano ballad which features a harmony stack moment with @cobysey

pre-order & more info here: https://t.co/9E8tirjQFs pic.twitter.com/wxJiutnNhj

— Laurel Halo (@LaurelHalo) July 12, 2023

also, I may have previously posted this on different thread, but this is another stunning mix

https://soundcloud.com/laurelhalo/laurel-halo-nowadays-nyc-562023

yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! yes!

new album popped up on bandcamp today... definitely could use more reverb. j/k .. i don't know if €11 is realistic for digital only. i'm going in for a third listen, and don't have slsk rn. cot damn (charging 11 euros for digital only) these bands. this new album reminds me of gas narkopop (similarly inviting, swirl of strings/ orchestra) on the surface. eleven euros, ouch :\

I think this album is really incredibly beautiful and unlike anything else I've heard.

i do enjoy the piano / rhodes / keyboard playing of laurel halo (wish there was more of it) .. the rest of atlas has grown on me after a couple of listens. it does remind me of other records--the quality of the sounds/ production (at times like an ocean) as a whole - drenched in reverb. it feels overly immersive (a dense wash) at times, having only listened to it on a phone. i like the listening environment to impart some reverb on the audio (on a proper listen) .. minor quibble aside, it is nice.

I guess to me it seems like a weird mix of Debussy, Ligeti, slow jazz, ambient music, drone, and film music, with nostalgic submersed keyboards and disguised voices, and with subtle but very striking insertion of background electronic noises

it sounds like it might open up nicely on headphones. i'm complaining after listening to it on a smartphone (externally) which is an obvious problem. i was deliberating over whether or not to buy the CD, which i can't afford rn. my stereo system is set up in a small-ish, tiled room which sort of amplifies the audio nicely w/its natural reverb. blah blah blah. i like your description, Dan S

I listened to it today and it was very ambient and drifty. Will have to give it another try.

this album is fucked up (compliment)

Played it twice through back to back. Just lovely.

Sounds marvelous

Sold on the basis of your description, Dan.

Yeah, this is *very* where I'm at, what I want from music these days. Beautiful and unsettled, sweet and ominous. Well worth the $20 it costs to get the CD shipped from wherever.

very good album 👍

This is great. First thought when putting it on was Roly Porter and sure enough there's James Ginzburg in the production credits. Title track reminds me of Richard Skelton if anyone. All those dense vibrating strings in a haunted landscape.

very much looking forward to hearing this <3 raw silk uncut wood and seems like this might be a continuation of that vibe?

raw silk... is the only release of hers/theirs that's left me utterly cold. this new one is quite compelling (i keep wanting to listen to it) in comparison, imo. there's an instance partway through Atlas that recalls the melancholy of Gavin Bryars' The Sinking of the Titanic.. the atmosphere, vibe, everything. i recall two separate performances / releases of TSotT (before the philip jeck thing), one (or both?) of them were recorded in an old water tower, or some kind of approximation of that. the atmosphere (depth of it, mournful strings, etc.) is quite similar. apart from that, it's definitely singular-sounding, esp. in l'oeuvre de halo.

*par ou de ... no se

Wow this is gorgeous.

parts of it feel like Autechre's "all end" arranged for strings

Played this intensely loud this afternoon and just dissolved into it. Brilliant record.

Yeah I put it on yesterday during a drifty disco nap, lovely.

raw silk... is the only release of hers/theirs that's left me utterly cold.

btw, "Reading the Air" (after 4 minutes, on Atlas) is the only track that vaguely reminded me of Gavin Bryars' The Sinking of The Titanic, in part of its chord progression. still haven't listened to Atlas on a proper system.

*getting familiar with Raw Silk Uncut Wood, that is

Atlas was my 2023 AOTY, and now she already has a new EP out, Octavia

https://laurelhalo.bandcamp.com/album/octavia

Oh that’s awesome, I’ve had to ration how often I play Atlas so I don’t burn out on it