Composer, director and DJ, Californian Laurel Halo has led a winding career for around ten years that has taken her from techno to jazz, taking detours towards film music and contemporary music. His renewed interest in the piano is at the origin ofAtlas, recorded largely at the famous studios of the Musical Research Group (INA grm), in Paris. If the instrument is deployed everywhere, it shines only once, on Beautiful city, its melodic contours can be heard like the ghost of a cabaret jazz success. The electronic argument of his work is discreet, Halo instead painting complex harmonic colors using strings (James Underwood, violin; Lucy Railton, cello) and the delicate saxophone of Germany’s Bendik Giske. In ten small vignettes (except for the title song of almost seven minutes), the composer plays with sound textures, sometimes introducing into her contemplative atmospheres a few touches of jazz and melodic themes which then dissolve in her pools of sounds.
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