Halo Fan Art

Metal Confection & Computer Love: An Interview With Laurel Halo

Current critical discourse around a great deal of modern synthesizer-based electronic music seems intrinsically linked to the debate around our reliance on the past as a resource – especially now, with the publication of Simon Reynolds' Retromania . There seems to be some concern that it will prove a finite seam, as if people are becoming over-reliant on the production of completely accurate facsimiles rather than using it as inspiration to push forward original ideas. You only need look at the sepia-tinted, Polaroid/Lomo fetishisms of a lot of the chillwave set to get the impression that, to a certain extent, that might well be true. But then there are also a growing number of artists working outside of those limiting boundaries and, despite using sound palettes perhaps associated with older forms of music, forging new narratives that stretch forward rather than backwards.

There's nothing nostalgic about Laurel Halo's music, for example, although last year's debut King Felix was buoyed by huge, booming 80s drums, and excellent new EP Hour Logic ripples with the electric blues and purples of first-wave Detroit techno. Alongside Oneohtrix Point Never and sometime Hippos In Tanks labelmates Hype Willliams, the themes and concerns she explores are unique to now, and couldn't possibly have been approached in the same way at any other juncture in time. At its heart lie the glaring contradictions of the information age, at a time when the future is presented as a bright and endlessly rewarding series of social interactions. Virtual connectivity vs. physical isolation. The humanity of analogue imperfection vs. coolly flawless digital reproduction. The false sensation of speed, of instant world-spanning movement, vs. the physical reality of increased stasis. And even, with the advent of stay-at-home club experiences like The Boiler Room, armchair vs. dancefloor. Her track titles give some indication as to their concerns: 'Supersymmetry'; 'Strength In Free Space'; 'Hour Logic'; 'Speed Of Rain'.

Sonically, Halo approaches these ideas with cautious optimism. Though currently based in Brooklyn, she grew up within a stone's throw of Detroit, and her music is fuelled by similar tensions between human and machine as those that informed that city's early techno innovators.

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