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Oct 5, 2023Some of the most affecting ambient music of the year, and perhaps even the very best in Halo's rich, unpredictable catalogue.
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Sep 22, 2023A thoroughly worthwhile listen for ambient fans that value a narrative.
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Dec 1, 2023Atlas is ambient neoclassical at its finest; stirring and introspective without succumbing to sameness, furthering Laurel Halo’s extensive, unpredictable influence on experimental and electronic traditions.
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Sep 28, 2023It is true you can very easily lose orientation amidst the billowing clouds and beatless productions (which makes the title Atlas seem ironic) but that only compels you to venture further, to learn the album’s unseeable contours.
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Sep 26, 2023Atlas derives its power from the tension between broad expanses of formlessness and sudden eruptions of destabilizing beauty. To me, this tender, elegiac album sounds like deathbed music—a flash of rapture while everything fades to black.
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Oct 4, 2023On first listen Halo’s compositions tend to merge into one another, a blur of impressions like looking down on a cloud dappled landscape or passing buildings through a rain smeared train window. The atmospheres are foggy, drenched but rich, infused with the apparent illogic of dreams whose significance must be pieced together with hindsight from clues obvious and obscure.
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Sep 25, 2023While her latest work may share a bit of sonic ground with contemporary drone-based artists such as Ellen Arkbo, Kali Malone, or Sarah Davachi, none of them create music quite as fluid or as wide-screened as the sounds heard here.
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Sep 22, 2023Even though the idea of listening to another quarantine-inspired ambient record might seem off-putting, the rewards are simply too tempting.
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Sep 22, 2023The album is bookended by "Abandon" and "Earthbound," the two tracks with Giske, whose presence isn't obvious, submerged and seemingly elongated amid dense constructions. It all resonates more deeply with each listen.
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UncutSep 22, 2023Halo is occasionally guilty of tasteful conservatory restraint, but overall this is a richly, immersive headphones experience, a haunted sonic mansion of many chambers. [Nov 2023, p.29]
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The WireSep 22, 2023Atlas is entirely ambient, a slipstream that moves in slow motion using dense atmospheres to confuse the listener, who is only momentarily permitted to take a specific position. The closing composition “Earthbound” guides us back towards the ground, but any sense of spatial awareness is already too skewed and you are left to wade your way through the remnants of sonic fog. [Sep 2023, p.56]