EX.731 Laurel Halo

"I fell in love with the piano again." The DJ and composer discusses the vulnerability of the creative process, returning to acoustic instruments and touring her latest album. Laurel Halo has been circling around the club music world for a number of years, but she's only recently entered the echelons of jazz and contemporary classical. Originally from Michigan, she went to music school in Ann Arbor before moving to Berlin, and now Los Angeles, where she composed her album, Atlas—a release that's been met with widespread critical acclaim. She also played alongside Moritz von Oswald in his jazz outfit the Moritz von Oswald Trio, and released a number of eclectic, UK-tinged dance floor records on underground giants like Hyperdub and Livity Sound. In this RA Exchange, Laurel Halo discusses the new direction of her music and what it's been like to tour it live with cellist Leila Bordreuil. She also talks about her creative inspiration (namely, the Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul and books by surrealist writers like Ursula K. Le Guin and Italo Calvino), the practice of aesthetic minimalism more generally and the methods she uses to create subtle variations in pieces that are slow to evolve. Listen to the episode in full.