Laurel Halo - Dust

Laurel Halo
Dust
2017
Spotify

Some albums are difficult to listen to. It could be because it's pandering, vapid, boring any number of things, but the one thing that many people don't do is listen to music that is difficult because it's challenging. Outside of her more club heavy EPs Laurel Halo works in making music that challenges what you think, both about what her music is and who she is. "Sun to Solar" the albums opener never finds any footing, the skittering jazz keys forced through an electronic lens and coming out the other side into something new. Halo's vocals are sweet and touching, yet distorted sometimes and distant at others. It's such a fascinating experience to feel like you are enjoying something, but not being to articulate quite why. Halo definitely wants to change what you think about when you think about genre. I could try and classify her style but it not only shifts from song to song but it will shift within a song. "Jelly" beings like this trippy electronic experiment, but then shifts into an utterly African rhythmic jam sesh. All it once Dust can sound totally improvisational but also meticulously crafted. "Arschkriecher" pushes a more techno vibe forward, but couples it with woodwind instruments creating this huge anxious sound that is simply fantastic, and she does all this in a minute thirty-five. "Moontalk" goes from 80s R&B hit to hip hop track than back to a straight African rhythm that paints a smile across your face you cannot get rid of. There are also this small but amazing flourishes like an telephone hang up sound, you wouldn't think it belonged but it fits in just right.

The main crux of the album is expectation, what you expect versus what you get. Halo is completely consumed with making sure what you expect is never what you get leaving surprises around every corner. Predicting the next line in a song makes it so boring, but there is a fine line between being experimental because it serves a purpose and doing it just to do it. Dust never feels self indulgent save for the more disparate tracks like "Who Won?" which feel more like a poem set to music than an actual song. The production throughout Dust  is simply incredible with the sound bouncing side to side and surrounding you. The sense of floating through some kind of weightless void is so real letting the album exist fully out of external forces. It is high minded stuff, but the ease with which Laurel Halo comes to these really complex ideas is really something to listen too. Too often an experimental record can roam around failing to reach a point or make any kind of statement, but that is never the case for Dust, it knows which direction it intendeds to go and is always ready to take your hand getting there. The beautiful bells that couple with Halo singing "When I was a Kid, I loved lighting fires" is just mesmerizing. I was utterly taken away by this record as well as incredibly impressed. If you appreciate great art you cannot miss this one.

8.5 out of 10