Warm Visions

You know I had to give shine to my fellow Michigander Laurel Halo, as she semi-recently announced her upcoming album Atlas, coming via her own label Awe Records on September 22.

With the album announcement, she dropped a minimal piano track “Belleville”, and this week released the title track of the record, a grander, but no less nebulous track, clocking in just under seven minutes. A blanket of fuzzy strings, all layered upon each other to create a fog-like effect sets the tone. Anxious squealing of other strings, soft, jazzy piano echo in the distance, upright bass is plucked intermittently. It’s a piano and bass duo with a string quartet, still playing quiet jazz deep within the halls of an abandoned mall.

But this isn’t some hokey backrooms kind of situation. I do not feel like the main mood Laurel Halo was going for on this track was fear. More like intrigue. Despite the rather placid surface of the song, it always feels like it’s moving towards something. The strings that provide the cloudy backdrop of the song may obscure the full view of the track, but they’re constantly in motion. A flowing river, its currents occasionally revealing a glint of something at the bottom of the riverbed, pulling things it has caught in its grasp downstream.

Frankly, I cannot wait for this record. Laurel Halo has time and time again shown off her versatility through her recent work in film scores, sci-fi epics like 2012’s Quarantine, club rippers, freaky art pop, and more. Atlas is shaping up to be a new wrinkle in her catalog that further develops her composition with more “traditional” instrumentation.