Description
#laurelhalo #vinyl #vinylrecords
Laurel Halo’s long-awaited debut album for her newly established Awe label is an awe-inspiring masterpiece. It combines elements of weightless jazz, orchestral compositions, and drifting energies, creating a captivating and elusive experience. Just when you think you have grasped its essence, it shape-shifts into something entirely different. Made from rarefied material, this album defies the contemporary “ambient” template, offering a fresh and innovative interpretation that envelops the listener like a cloud. However, its true brilliance emerges with deep, attentive listening.
With contributions from Bendik Giske, James Underwood, Lucy Railton, and Coby Sey, this album is a strong contender for Album of the Year. If you appreciate the works of Pharoah Sanders, Gavin Bryars, GAS, or Klein’s mind-bending “Harmattan” album, then this album comes highly recommended.
Laurel Halo, currently based in Los Angeles, has spent years immersing herself in different cities, transiently experiencing the essence of each place. “Atlas,” her debut release on Awe, aims to capture that intangible feeling in music. Combining electronic and acoustic instruments, Halo has crafted a mesmerizing collection of sensual ambient jazz compositions. The album features orchestral clouds, modal harmonies, intricate sonic details, and distorted, hallucinatory textures. It serves as a sonic map, guiding the listener through real and imagined places, conveying the unspoken emotions.
The journey of creating “Atlas” began in 2020, as Halo reconnected with the piano. She found solace in its physical response and its ability to convey emotions and weightlessness. When offered a residency at the renowned Ina-GRM Studios in Paris in 2021, she wasted no time in manipulating and stretching her simple piano recordings into complex compositions. These transformed piano recordings became the heart of “Atlas.” Throughout 2021 and 2022, while dividing her time between Berlin and London, Halo recorded additional guitar, violin, and vibraphone, as well as collaborating with friends and musicians such as Bendik Giske, James Underwood, Lucy Railton, and Coby Sey. These organic sounds were then shaped, melted, and reimagined, leaving behind their original acoustic essence.
In summary, “Atlas” is music for the subconscious mind, accompanying a road trip through the depths of our thoughts. With repeated listens, it creates a profound sensorial experience, reminiscent of wandering in a dark forest at dusk. Its humor and sharp focus dispel any notion of sentimentality usually associated with such compositions. Standing apart from Halo’s previous works, “Atlas” finds its strength in the quietest of places, rejecting grandiosity to embrace a sense of awe. It is fitting that this album is the inaugural release on Awe, a label whose slogan aligns with the album’s mood and atmosphere, encapsulating the feeling of encountering forces beyond our control – be it nature, the cosmos, chaos, human error, or hallucinations.
