DJ-Kicks (Laurel Halo) [DJ Mix]

Laurel Halo is a restlessly experimental musician: Her curiosity has taken her from the electro-pop and vaporwave of her early work into avant techno, electro-acoustic music, film soundtracks, and collaborations with artists like Eli Keszler and Moritz von Oswald. What’s less documented is her facility for the leftfield club sounds she hinted at on a collaborative EP with Hodge on Livity Sound in 2018. But Halo’s *DJ-Kicks*, released the following year, makes for a deep dive into cutting-edge club rhythms where her long-standing interest in murky tones and tactile textures meets the heavyweight propulsion of bass music. She kicks off the set with a fake-out, smearing detuned piano chords across the spectrum and then plunging into a shape-shifting sequence of techno and electro. She has a knack for playing contrasting tracks off each other in surprising ways: The glancing chords of Parris’ spacious, dubby “Puro Rosaceaes” set up the dissonant spirals of Rrose’s “Cricoid Pressure”; the rolling breakbeat techno of Dario Zenker’s “Koraimer Bro” blasts open a hole for Final Cut’s “Temptation,” a seldom-heard 1989 song from Jeff Mills’ industrial project. Halo’s own productions are often notable for their subtlety, but here, the intensity just keeps building all the way to the end—at least until The Whitefield Brothers’ percussive “NTU” closes out the mix with a campfire drum circle, complete with chirping crickets. But then, it wouldn’t be a Laurel Halo project without one final curveball.