Logo
DiS Needs You: Save our site »
  • Logo_home2
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • In Photos
  • Blog
  • Podcast
  • Search
  • Community
  • Records
  • In Depth
  • Blog
  • Community

THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Please join the conversation over on our new forums »

If you really want to read this, try using The Internet Archive.

106083

review

Laurel Halo - DJ-Kicks
JimRice14 by John-Paul Shiver March 21st, 2019

Laurel Halo, the American-born producer, musician, and DJ, has released four dissimilar studio albums since 2012, which move briskly from experimental pop, through minimal techno, to evergreen-ambient textures. Her avant-garde technique remains steadfast. To alter the properties of sound by tinkering with the roles that voice, machines and wide open spaces can play in modern music. The last two solo records, Raw Silk Uncut Wood for Latency and Dust for Hyperdub, used ambient noise-electronic or classically informed-as a function to either meditate by or move to.



So don't get flummoxed when you witness her wringing and twisting the bejesus out of the sixty-eighth edition of the DJ-Kicks mix series, on which Halo expertly shuffles musical microclimates like a card shark elbow greasing a three card molly hustle.

Presenting 29 tracks in 60 minutes (DAMN), she drags friends, unknown artists, and leftfield thinkers to walk through this door with her. Like a car mechanic dying to use EVERY tool in the garage, the amalgam captures a specific eagerness: with tempo, dressed in polychromatic tones, throttling past our eyes and ears. Halo, caters the style of the mix to the terrain of the song. Manoeuvring through fierce arpeggios, ruff bass lines, space-age micro-house, and machine-like landscapes.

It's always the exclusive tracks on these mixes that paints a Venn diagram of whom the curator is choosing to share the spotlight with. So championing the swirly heaviness of Rrose, the 128 bpm peak time physicality of Machinewoman or the Tetris-like pressure of ‘Penny Rut’ by FIT Siegel adds insider info to this high-speed delivery system.

But taking a step back, it becomes simple. This entire patchwork advances in suites. Songs plucked to work as an interwoven collective, become instruments. Yes, the concept of the DJ-Kicks series should always do that. But Halo, wielding this polychromatic light, never really emphasises where one song ends and another starts... things stay fluid... into and out of one another during this entire 60-minute conversation.

It's only the blissed-out half time deconstructions, which link the 4/4 driven segments, that offer breathing space. In those post-Drexciya, liquid pressurised moments, things creep gently. Dreamlike. And just as we catch our breath, BOOM. Halo is off again, hustling forward through tribal notions, cavernous Berlinesque stretches and finally vocal environs where the music starts to smile through a Chicago house swing.

Damn that DJ made my day.

![106083](http://dis.resized.images.s3.amazonaws.com/540x310/106083.jpeg)


LATEST


  • Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Year: 2020


  • Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter


  • Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing


  • Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alternative must sees


  • A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash


  • Way Out East: DiS Does Sharpe Festival 2019

Share on
   
Love DiS? Become a Patron of the site here »


Left-arrow

Fuzz Club Eindhoven Announces DiS As Media Partner For 2019 & First Wave Of Artists

Mobback
106056

More bands announced for DiS partnered Fuzz Club Eindhoven

Mobforward
106131
Right-arrow


LATEST

    news


    Drowned in Sound's 21 Favourite Albums of the Y...

  • 106141
  • news


    Drowned in Sound to return as a weekly newsletter

  • 106139

    Playlist


    Lykke Li's Sadness Is A Blessing

  • 106138
  • Festival Preview


    Glastonbury 2019 preview playlist + ten alterna...

  • 106137

    Interview


    A Different Kind Of Weird: dEUS on The Ideal Crash

  • 106136
  • Festival Review


    Way Out East: DiS Does Sharpe Festival 2019

  • 106135

    Festival Review


    25 years of SPOT Festival: DiS Picks Its Best 11

  • 106134
  • Festival Review


    Twelve Hours Of Drone Is Just The Beginning: Di...

  • 106133
MORE


    feature


    Drowned in Sound's 50 albums of 2008

  • 44086
  • review


    The Blood Brothers - ...Burn, Piano Island, Burn

  • 3517

    Discography Reassessed


    The Story So Far: Pere Ubu in Review

  • 100661
  • feature


    DiS does Wireless... half the time, anyway

  • 25065

    Interview


    With Nile and I: DiS meets Nile Rodgers

  • 98023
  • Column


    Lost Albums 2000-2015

  • 101481

    feature


    A Month in Records: August 2008

  • 33467
  • DiSband


    DiSband #7: Viva Brother

  • 77972
MORE
Drowned in Sound
  • DROWNED IN SOUND
  • HOME
  • SITE MAP
  • NEWS
  • IN DEPTH
  • IN PHOTOS
  • RECORDS
  • RECOMMENDED RECORDS
  • ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
  • FESTIVAL COVERAGE
  • COMMUNITY
  • MUSIC FORUM
  • SOCIAL BOARD
  • REPORT ERRORS
  • CONTACT US
  • JOIN OUR MAILING LIST
  • FOLLOW DiS
  • GOOGLE+
  • FACEBOOK
  • TWITTER
  • SHUFFLER
  • TUMBLR
  • YOUTUBE
  • RSS FEED
  • RSS EMAIL SUBSCRIBE
  • MISC
  • TERM OF USE
  • PRIVACY
  • ADVERTISING
  • OUR WIKIPEDIA
© 2000-2022 DROWNED IN SOUND