Single Review: Laurel Halo – Sunlight On The Faded

By Paul Stephen Gettings

December 09, 2012

Laurel Halo‘s second release since signing to Hyperdub, ‘Sunlight on the Faded’ comes in close behind May’s debut LP, Quarantine. Already, the forward-thinking songwriter-producer is moving away from her established sound into more fast-paced, ominous territory. The unabashedly dry vocals that tickled so many ears on Quarantine are back, stripped clean of the canyon reverb of her early EPs. But they come combined with sparse, insistent percussion and mechanistic stabs of texture and bass that add up to be something of a claustrophobic listen. However, the simple purity of Halo’s vocals glow like neon in the murk and build up to an understated, redemptive conclusion.