Laurel Halo

This thing is unreal

It's worth noting that if you buy it from Bandcamp, besides the actual mixtape you'll get the original unmixed versions of all the tracks as a bonus!

damn was hoping the K&D DJ-Kicks got the same treatment but no. although now I want to buy it on vinyl which ... why. why would I want a mixed album over four sides. but i do.

full sub to the DJ Kicks Bandcamp is £85 for the year which gets you vinyl copies of each release as they come out, as well as streaming and d/ls and access to the archive of the last couple of years of releases. I signed up about a month ago.

how many releases per year at that price?

last year five, the year before that six, so I think you get pretty good value for money

yeah, sounds it.

its the continuous mix on vinyl?

seems weird

not sure what lukas is referring to

both the k&d and laurel halo vinyl are unmixed tracks

https://www.discogs.com/Kruder-Dorfmeister-DJ-Kicks/release/110174

https://www.discogs.com/Laurel-Halo-DJ-Kicks/release/13390242

O!

I'm not trying to dampen anyone's enjoyment or taking anything away from LH, but while I enjoyed the mix, it didn't hit me as anything more special than a good mix? Idk, I hear really good mixes all the time these days (thanks to an overflow of sources like NTS, mix series from media outlets, other internet radio stations, etc).

it's a good mix

Yeah it feels like a good, slightly off-kilter mix but not radically better or worse than a lot of mixes you hear, including in the DJ Kicks series. I guess some of the comments on this thread are coming from people who don't listen to a lot of mixes but really engage with Laurel Halo as an artist? Which is fine, it's a very enjoyable and well put-together mix but I'm not quite feeling the rush.

i listen to most of the dj kicks series; this felt like a standout.

i would say on a technical mixing level good but not particularly special. on the other hand i think her selections are very very good. she has an ear for picking out weird tracks that sound good together. and a lot of the tracks on this were new to me, as were several of the artists, so there's that.

I definitely don't listen to tons of mixes these days, and I was quite surprised how much this one hits a sweet spot for me. I don't at all think she owns this sound and would love more recommendations of similar off-kilter techno mixes.

i listen to a lot of mixes and i think her selections for this have a wild and trippy energy with tons of enigmatic texture and the contrast between tracks is almost always unexpected and frankly bizarre in an electrifying way. i don't hear a lot of mixes that do that. also i don't even know what off-the-charts amazing technically great mixing would even sound like and don't much care to hear it if the selection isn't on par.

a few of the tracks have like an art-punk punch that feels legitimately destabilizing to me in a dance mix. i mean maybe what i don't listen to 'enough' of or whatever is like cutting edge nihilistic bizarre exploratory dance music in which case i'm very grateful for this mix.

a wild and trippy energy with tons of enigmatic texture

This nails exactly what I love about the mix. Reminds me a bit of Magda maybe.

That all makes sense. I definitely remember when it was hard to access mixes, and commercial mixes were my first exposure to anything of the sort. Maybe now that everything is so easily accessible, elevating a mix to release status comes with unfair expectations.

yeah i mean the micro-math of multiple little niche market hype bubbles interacting with each other seems to determine who gets shine among a large number of competent to great djs these days and that can get tiring but i try not to care so much when there are so many opportunities to hear excellent and transporting mix experiences day to day.

its a standout imo

a few of the tracks have like an art-punk punch that feels legitimately destabilizing to me in a dance mix. i mean maybe what i don't listen to 'enough' of or whatever is like cutting edge nihilistic bizarre exploratory dance music in which case i'm very grateful for this mix.

― cheese canopy (map), Wednesday, April 3, 2019 3:00 PM (forty minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

totally

I will say I think on a few listens I like the boiler room set posted above more than the DJ Kicks mix.

i am listening to quarantine rn

it is the best album ever

That DJ Kicks mix is still great, it deserves more love

not that into DJ mixes in general, but I really like it

re-reading this thread makes me wonder what Ross is up to

hmmm I'm contemplating running a poll of her catalog.. I'm curious to see how that would turn out

(an album poll, that is, not a ballot poll)

I think I still like Hour Logic the most, because of my attachment to the experience of discovering her work at a time when it felt like it was making a novel and exciting step towards a kind of new idm-ish sound for the 2010s, and was its own thing, before that would become relatively commonplace in the following years.

Quarantine. I'm still really amused how angry some people here got about that record.

King Felix spring is still her best record and slept on so yeah...

― Ross, Wednesday, August 8, 2018 1:04 AM (three years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I just listened to this for the first time in years and it is incredible. Don't remember it hitting me so hard before. The drum programming is virtuosic, the samples and synths lush. All is well for the moment.

The new Caterina Barbieri album giving me massive early LH vibes after a first bandcamp listen.

a lot more vocals that I was expecting, and the way they sit in the mix feels very Quarantine-era Halo.

mix from july
https://soundcloud.com/discwoman/discwoman-27-x-laurel-halo

― Week of Wonders (Ross), Thursday, October 12, 2017 10:39 AM (five years ago) bookmarkflaglink

if you haven't heard this mix, you owe it to yourself

she is on another level as a DJ, it's really impressive that every single track stands out in it's own way and the mix is stylistically all over the place, but somehow she manages to make it flow naturally and seamlessly. it's rare to hear something so eclectic that doesn't devolve into chaos.

I think I've said this before but seeing her DJ a few years ago was a great experience, lots of gqom and early bleep tracks, incredible energy

thrilled to announce my first album in five years, Atlas, is coming out September 22 on my new label Awe. You can listen to the first single 'Belleville', a piano ballad which features a harmony stack moment with @cobysey

pre-order & more info here: https://t.co/9E8tirjQFs pic.twitter.com/wxJiutnNhj

— Laurel Halo (@LaurelHalo) July 12, 2023

also, I may have previously posted this on different thread, but this is another stunning mix

https://soundcloud.com/laurelhalo/laurel-halo-nowadays-nyc-562023

yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! yes! yes!

new album popped up on bandcamp today... definitely could use more reverb. j/k .. i don't know if €11 is realistic for digital only. i'm going in for a third listen, and don't have slsk rn. cot damn (charging 11 euros for digital only) these bands. this new album reminds me of gas narkopop (similarly inviting, swirl of strings/ orchestra) on the surface. eleven euros, ouch :\

I think this album is really incredibly beautiful and unlike anything else I've heard.

i do enjoy the piano / rhodes / keyboard playing of laurel halo (wish there was more of it) .. the rest of atlas has grown on me after a couple of listens. it does remind me of other records--the quality of the sounds/ production (at times like an ocean) as a whole - drenched in reverb. it feels overly immersive (a dense wash) at times, having only listened to it on a phone. i like the listening environment to impart some reverb on the audio (on a proper listen) .. minor quibble aside, it is nice.

I guess to me it seems like a weird mix of Debussy, Ligeti, slow jazz, ambient music, drone, and film music, with nostalgic submersed keyboards and disguised voices, and with subtle but very striking insertion of background electronic noises

it sounds like it might open up nicely on headphones. i'm complaining after listening to it on a smartphone (externally) which is an obvious problem. i was deliberating over whether or not to buy the CD, which i can't afford rn. my stereo system is set up in a small-ish, tiled room which sort of amplifies the audio nicely w/its natural reverb. blah blah blah. i like your description, Dan S

I listened to it today and it was very ambient and drifty. Will have to give it another try.

this album is fucked up (compliment)

Played it twice through back to back. Just lovely.

Sounds marvelous

Sold on the basis of your description, Dan.

Yeah, this is *very* where I'm at, what I want from music these days. Beautiful and unsettled, sweet and ominous. Well worth the $20 it costs to get the CD shipped from wherever.