premiere: Laurel Halo – “Light + Space”

“I started out with a ton of echo and reverb on the vocals, but it sounded supremely boring to me, so I was curious how they’d sound dry in the arrangements and got rid of most of the wetness…It was tempting to use autotune but I decided against it because there’s this brutal, sensual ugliness in the vocals uncorrected, and painfully human vocals made sense for this record” — Laurel Halo, on her new record Quarantine

Here’s a stunning new transmission from Laurel Halo, in which we begin to understand, and subsequently come to love, her concept of “sensual ugliness” in the span of just under 5 minutes. “Light + Space” is the closing track from her entrancing forthcoming full-length, which is quite unlike anything we’ve heard from Ms. Halo before. Quarantine is out May 28 in the UK + June 5 in the States via Hyperdub:

Laurel Halo plays live at the Bunker Unsound Festival New York edition next Friday, as part of a great bill that includes Demdike Stare, Ital, and others.