Biography
Laurel Halo charts an individual course through her roles as composer, producer, musician, DJ, and educator, with a focus on experimental composition, innovative club sounds, and unconventional pop forms. The Ann Arbor native's engagement with the dancefloor advancements from Detroit and London, alongside Berlin's scene during one of her temporary residences, came through in her initial works such as the 2011 EP Hour Logic. Her dystopian debut album Quarantine on Hyperdub exposed her avant-pop inclinations and earned recognition as the top release of 2012 from The Wire magazine. After the instrumental abstractions found in 2013's Chance of Rain and the 2015 double EP In Situ, Halo merged those methods with her initial LP approach for the 2017 album Dust, which proved disorienting yet at times joyful. Halo continued probing variations of minimal and solitary ambient music via her score for the film Possessed along with the later recorded Raw Silk Uncut Wood, both 2018 endeavors that paved the way for Atlas, her fifth studio album and inaugural release on her self-established Awe label in 2023.
A musician trained in classical technique, Halo acquired proficiency on piano, guitar, and violin during her upbringing in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She started composing at age 19, drawing from the sounds encountered at Detroit dance parties, her participation in free jazz ensembles, her period as a free-form DJ on the University of Michigan's radio station WCBN, and studies in classical theory. Between 2006 and 2009 she put out several EPs, among them The Future Fruit and 2009's Ambrosia. After relocating to New York, she issued the 2010 King Felix EP on Hippos in Tanks -- the same imprint that housed GAMES, Hype Williams, and d'Eon -- with the project inspired by Philip K. Dick's novel VALIS. The techno-leaning Hour Logic EP followed on that label in 2011, while NNA Tapes released her ambient cassette Antenna. She also joined David Borden, James Ferraro, Sam Godin, and Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) on the drone album FRKWYS 7 for Rvng Intl. Her breakthrough album and Hyperdub debut, the disquieting, vocal-heavy Quarantine, arrived in May 2012 and received prominent acclaim from The Wire. The single "Sunlight on the Faded" surfaced near year's end.
Halo relocated to Berlin in 2013 and emerged with two projects, the techno EP Behind the Green Door and the full-length Chance of Rain, which fused jazz-inspired experimental techno with musique concrète pieces. She sustained her interest in radio by hosting a monthly broadcast on Berlin Community Radio and supplying guest mixes for WNYC, BBC Radio, and Rinse FM. She made a brief stop at Honest Jon's for 2015's In Situ, a double EP of more introverted yet still experimental dubwise tracks. That year she also participated with Julia Holter, Rashad Becker, NHK'Koyxen, and others in Terepa, whose self-titled EP captured the outcomes of long-distance recording sessions conducted without communication beyond possible telepathic means. Halo additionally supplied a version of Karen Dalton's "Blue Notion" to Remembering Mountains, a set of interpretations of the folk icon's lost lyrics.
In 2016 a collaboration between Halo and virtual pop star Hatsune Miku premiered at Berlin's HKW and London's Barbican. The following year Halo released Dust, her third Hyperdub album. Unlike her first two albums for the label, it was not created in isolation. Recorded over a two-year span at Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) in Troy, New York, it incorporated contributions from multiple instrumentalists and vocalists, including Julia Holter and Lafawndah. Halo next supplied the original soundtrack for the hybrid fiction-documentary film Possessed, an outgrowth of which became the instrumental album Raw Silk Uncut Wood, featuring contributions from cellist Oliver Coates and percussionist Eli Keszler. The latter appeared on the French label Latency in 2018. Also that year Halo teamed with techno producer Hodge on the EP Tru/Opal/The Light Within You, issued by Livity Sound. Her first commercially released mix, an installment of !K7's long-running DJ-Kicks series, arrived in 2019.
The Possessed soundtrack received commercial release in 2020 through The Vinyl Factory, shortly after which Halo began a monthly DJ residency on NTS Radio, titling her program Awe. In 2021 Halo collaborated with Moritz von Oswald and Heinrich Kobberling on the Moritz von Oswald Trio album Dissent, playing keyboards throughout and co-composing all the material. Halo's Awe label formally launched two years later with the release of Atlas, a set of intensively processed ambient pieces incorporating Halo's piano, Lucy Railton's cello, and James Underwood's violin among numerous elements in the drifting mix. By that point Halo resided in Los Angeles and had joined the faculty of CalArts, teaching composition and experimental sound practices.
A musician trained in classical technique, Halo acquired proficiency on piano, guitar, and violin during her upbringing in Ann Arbor, Michigan. She started composing at age 19, drawing from the sounds encountered at Detroit dance parties, her participation in free jazz ensembles, her period as a free-form DJ on the University of Michigan's radio station WCBN, and studies in classical theory. Between 2006 and 2009 she put out several EPs, among them The Future Fruit and 2009's Ambrosia. After relocating to New York, she issued the 2010 King Felix EP on Hippos in Tanks -- the same imprint that housed GAMES, Hype Williams, and d'Eon -- with the project inspired by Philip K. Dick's novel VALIS. The techno-leaning Hour Logic EP followed on that label in 2011, while NNA Tapes released her ambient cassette Antenna. She also joined David Borden, James Ferraro, Sam Godin, and Daniel Lopatin (Oneohtrix Point Never) on the drone album FRKWYS 7 for Rvng Intl. Her breakthrough album and Hyperdub debut, the disquieting, vocal-heavy Quarantine, arrived in May 2012 and received prominent acclaim from The Wire. The single "Sunlight on the Faded" surfaced near year's end.
Halo relocated to Berlin in 2013 and emerged with two projects, the techno EP Behind the Green Door and the full-length Chance of Rain, which fused jazz-inspired experimental techno with musique concrète pieces. She sustained her interest in radio by hosting a monthly broadcast on Berlin Community Radio and supplying guest mixes for WNYC, BBC Radio, and Rinse FM. She made a brief stop at Honest Jon's for 2015's In Situ, a double EP of more introverted yet still experimental dubwise tracks. That year she also participated with Julia Holter, Rashad Becker, NHK'Koyxen, and others in Terepa, whose self-titled EP captured the outcomes of long-distance recording sessions conducted without communication beyond possible telepathic means. Halo additionally supplied a version of Karen Dalton's "Blue Notion" to Remembering Mountains, a set of interpretations of the folk icon's lost lyrics.
In 2016 a collaboration between Halo and virtual pop star Hatsune Miku premiered at Berlin's HKW and London's Barbican. The following year Halo released Dust, her third Hyperdub album. Unlike her first two albums for the label, it was not created in isolation. Recorded over a two-year span at Experimental Media and Performing Arts Center (EMPAC) in Troy, New York, it incorporated contributions from multiple instrumentalists and vocalists, including Julia Holter and Lafawndah. Halo next supplied the original soundtrack for the hybrid fiction-documentary film Possessed, an outgrowth of which became the instrumental album Raw Silk Uncut Wood, featuring contributions from cellist Oliver Coates and percussionist Eli Keszler. The latter appeared on the French label Latency in 2018. Also that year Halo teamed with techno producer Hodge on the EP Tru/Opal/The Light Within You, issued by Livity Sound. Her first commercially released mix, an installment of !K7's long-running DJ-Kicks series, arrived in 2019.
The Possessed soundtrack received commercial release in 2020 through The Vinyl Factory, shortly after which Halo began a monthly DJ residency on NTS Radio, titling her program Awe. In 2021 Halo collaborated with Moritz von Oswald and Heinrich Kobberling on the Moritz von Oswald Trio album Dissent, playing keyboards throughout and co-composing all the material. Halo's Awe label formally launched two years later with the release of Atlas, a set of intensively processed ambient pieces incorporating Halo's piano, Lucy Railton's cello, and James Underwood's violin among numerous elements in the drifting mix. By that point Halo resided in Los Angeles and had joined the faculty of CalArts, teaching composition and experimental sound practices.
Albums
Possessed (Original Score)
2020
DJ-Kicks EP
2019
Dust
2017
Chance Of Rain
2013
Quarantine
2012
FRKWYS Vol. 7: Borden, Ferraro, Godin, Halo & Lopatin
2011
Antenna
2011
Singles
