Review Summary: ๐ฑ๐ฟ๐ผ๐๐ป, ๐๐น๐ฒ๐ฒ๐ฝ, ๐๐ซ๐จ๐ฐ๐ง, ๐ฌ๐ฅ๐๐๐ฉ, ๐
๐๐๐๐, ๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐ง๐ค๐ฌ๐ฃ, ๐จ๐ก๐๐๐ฅ, ๐๐๐๐ค๐, ๐ ๐๐๐๐
Do you like corrosive, in-your-face, brash music? You like your orchestral music gargantuan and epic? You like your electronic production danceable and electrifying? Well, have a nice day then and see you next time. Here comes the princess of subtlety and meticulous composition, the high priestess of overemploying instrumentalists to conduct the most minimalist soundscapes, the guru of lavishly slick sound masking the grind beneath, the heavensent deliverance of ease and peace arranged to fit the classical-cum-ambient contours. Sing it with me:
La-La-La-La-Laurel Halo: she who can build everything out of nothing (not to be confused with
Laurel Hell who has built nothing out of everything). Feast your ears and weep the invisible tears of appreciation, weโre throwing down a rager tonight and the menu is all
monochromatic maximalistically arranged minimalist suites for the sleepyheads โ in a good way. And to achieve this marriage of grandiosity and confinement, Halo brought along a ragtag team of musical craftsmasters. The culprits are as follows: cellist of eeriness Lucy Railton, haunter of violin James Underwood, two-track saxophone wizard Bendik Giske, and one-track choir imitator Coby Sey. They are to blame for your good time.
At every turn, the pathologically non-melodic
Atlas wails in distant positivism, albeit cleverly concealed. Although proclaimed to be ambient jazz record, thinking of this in terms of genre restrictions might be doing this a disservice. Certainly, sporadic snippets of jazz excursions seep through the foggy cracks here and there, most present in shaky piano disharmony. But such snippets often function as a force of collision with all surrounding arrangement. For lack of other words (and other formatting), this is all too ๐คฬฬฎ๐ฬฬฎ๐ฃฬฬฎ๐ฆฬฬฎ and โฬฬฎ๐ฬฬฎ๐งฬฬฎ๐ฆฬฬฎ to constitute jazz, yet simultaneously too ๐โโ๐โโ๐โโ๐โโ๐โโ ๐โโ๐โโ๐โ and ๐โโ๐โโ๐โโ๐โโ๐โโ ๐โโ๐โโ to fit neatly within ambient musicโs clean borders. There sits a suffocating tension of rupture haunting every corner, as if at any moment a devastating bombshell is to drop and change your life forever or has just dropped and you are now amid processing of it, gradually calming down. This trepidation lines most tracks but is most present in cuts like โLate Night Driveโ and โAtlasโ, whose constant repetitious creeping is bordering on disturbing.
Hopefully, this does not seem too disproving of the positivismโs claims a few sentences earlier. The minor key composition of most tracks on paper gives little indication of the albumโs inherent uplifting nature. See, the plethora of instrumental layers combine together into a distorted sound of a dream. Like hearing glimpses of different songs from distant opposing directions, while you dwell underwater. Their muffled, directionless mix works counter to the general creepiness on the surface, creating an inexplicably soothing comfortable atmosphere. Almost like a disappearing memory summoned in feverโs dream. Trying to discern tracks often amounts to picking apart minimal detail in hopes to grasp distinction. For all intents and purposes,
Atlas might as well be one continuous track, set to constant loop, gently lulling a listener so inclined to sleep or a coma. At best, one can point to tracks like โBellevilleโ and its background vocal harmony and a sudden explosion (whether one can call it that) of melody, or โReading the Airโ, in which a benevolent deity of deep oceans is encountered, as it would appear.
Here ease takes over, drowns out despair, freezes all trouble, here love dissolves, and rest finds bloom. Here is a dream, eternally breaking apart and coalescing back into a mould of barely attainable meaning. Here is peace, here is calm.
