Quarantine
Laurel Halo
Released:
Jun 2012
Label:
Hyperdub
For her first full-length, Brooklyn's Laurel Halo expands upon the billowing, abstracted techno and electronica of her previous EPs, and not as you might have expected. The gaseous chords and quicksilver arpeggios have been toned down, making room for Halo's own voice, which she pushes to the front of the mix, conspicuously stripped of processing. The result is the perception of an unusually naked subject crawling out of a gauzy cocoon -- though what emerges is more hawk than butterfly. The album chills even as it soothes.