In a few short years Laurel Halo has demonstrated an unnerving ability to question established idioms in electronic music. Throughout her body of work the Michiganborn producer has expressed musical representations of merged dualities; spirituality in the inorganic, space in the claustrophobic, hope in dread. As a result there's something uncanny about Laurel Halo's sound – the sonic templates may change, but the challenging of divides remains.
Laurel Halo returns to LP format after two critically acclaimed EPs with the driving, meditative ‘Chance Of Rain’. Evolving from earlier works, it's a cerebral exploration of the intersection between rhythmic and ambient music, drawing together moments of movement and stillness, psychedelia and presence of mind. On ‘Chance Of Rain’, rhythms melt with unpredictable structures, ambient drift and deep harmonic passages, while keyboard-based interludes reinforce both the far-out and contemplative aspects of the record as a whole.
Halo's evolution as a live performer has directed her music's development in part, as the tracks on ‘Chance Of Rain’ are fleshed out versions of live hardware improvisations. This LP is far off from the definition of a traditional dance long player; where tracks like ‘Serendip,’ ‘Chance Of Rain’ and ‘Ainnome’ invite with infectious grooves, others like ‘Oneiroi’,‘Still/Dromos’ and ‘Thrax’ invert these energies, revealing sinister potential in the process. Again Halo's knack for illusory detail and sound design shines, and another duality feeling emerges, this time one of unearthly joy. Drawing inspiration from the music of her home state's music capital Detroit, in both harmonic and rhythmic palettes, the music showcases freedom within metric constructs, and skyward optimism in the face of decay.
The album comes packaged with artwork created by her father, an NYC-born, Michigan-based visual artist whose work focuses on industrial landscapes of Michigan and the Rust Belt at large. The artwork here is an early work of his from the 1970s, reflecting the album's twisted, hopeful tone. ‘Chance Of Rain’ was mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.