Dust
by Laurel Halo
  • Record Label: Hyperdub
  • Release Date: Jun 23, 2017
Metascore
84

Universal acclaim - based on 19 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 18 out of 19
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 19
  3. Negative: 0 out of 19
Buy Now
Buy on
  1. Tiny Mix Tapes
    Jun 23, 2017
    100
    Dust is then a remarkable accumulation of disruptions and attachments, gaseous parts and shifting centres. Coherent in their incoherence, playful in their experimentalism, its tracks unfold smoothly, their trunks buzzing with magnetism, attracting the attention of pealing bells, skronking sax, and dub-techno beats.
  2. The Guardian
    Jun 22, 2017
    100
    This is a triumph of impressionism, where the digital and organic coexist in a radically beautiful whole.
  3. Mixmag
    Jun 30, 2017
    90
    [An] immersive, frequently moving, absorbing experience.
  5. Exclaim
    Jun 30, 2017
    90
    A more challenging and elusive listen than the felted atmospherics of Chance of Rain or In Situ, this is Halo at her most artful and poetic.
  6. Drowned In Sound
    Jun 26, 2017
    90
    Laurel Halo’s most ecstatically esoteric effort to date, which, in the case of this artist at least, is another way of saying that is both her best and her most joyously listenable.
  7. The Line of Best Fit
    Jun 26, 2017
    90
    Though Dust often feels like it’s dreaming, you’re nevertheless consistently reminded of its complexity and Halo’s deep cognisance of the musical language.
  8. Resident Advisor
    Jun 22, 2017
    86
    Halo's records have always posed tricky questions, and Dust features her most complex and engrossing yet.
  9. The 405
    Jun 23, 2017
    85
    It’s her most complete-feeling album to date, and never seems like Halo is trying to please anyone but herself. Yet, she also manages to create emotional bridges through the sincerity of her compositions.
  10. Pitchfork
    Jun 28, 2017
    82
    Dust is a dense and heady record, and from certain angles can seem intimidating, even impenetrable. But between the clever track sequencing and a handful of irresistible outcrops of groove and melody, Halo provides plenty of footholds to cling onto while you acclimatise to her lawless universe.
  11. The Wire
    Aug 8, 2017
    80
    Dust floats along meditatively, and is Halo’s warmest and most familial record to date. [Jul 2017, p.52]
    All this publication's reviews
  12. Spin
    Jul 5, 2017
    80
    For an artist never exactly afraid of taking risks, Dust still finds new forms of experimentation, moving beyond dance toward something softer and more reflective. Halo juggles new elements with gorgeous sparseness that gives weight to each sonic addition.
  13. The Quietus
    Jun 29, 2017
    80
    It’s an album that abounds with details but feels perfectly homogenous, and one can only wonder where Laurel Halo goes from here. It could be very interesting indeed.
  14. Under The Radar
    Jun 26, 2017
    80
    That Dust offers as much while also feeling like Laurel Halo's most cohesive work to date is almost a minor miracle.
  15. The Observer (UK)
    Jun 26, 2017
    80
    Dust is a record that is powerful, consuming, yet also strangely comforting.
  16. Uncut
    Jun 22, 2017
    80
    "Jelly's" languid R&B and the Latin shuffle of "Moonwalk" will seduce newcomers, while the rest--like Juana Molina's recent Halo--is subtle and endlessly engrossing. [Aug 2017, p.30]
    All this publication's reviews
  17. The Skinny
    Jun 22, 2017
    80
    Dust breathes so easy at times, its beats are almost loose. ... Highly recommended; this time around there’s nothing to fear.
  18. Clash Music
    Jul 19, 2017
    70
    Dust is divisive and at times challenging. Yet, in Halo’s restless experimentalism we find moments of unexpected beauty.
  19. AllMusic
    Jun 29, 2017
    70
    Dust is very disorienting and not always easy to grasp hold of, but it never comes close to sounding like anything else, and its best moments are highly compelling.
  20. PopMatters
    Jun 26, 2017
    60
    Laurel Halo’s penchant for abstraction has long served her music well, but Dust veers too far in the direction of academic detachment, suffering from its own inertness.

Awards & Rankings

51
#51 Best Album of 2017

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.7

Generally favorable reviews- based on 24 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 19 out of 24
  2. Mixed: 2 out of 24
  3. Negative: 3 out of 24
  1. nagnagnag
    Oct 17, 2017
    10
    Few current artists can be as challenging and out-there as electronic producer and singer Ina Cube, the woman behind Laurel Halo. She's a trueFew current artists can be as challenging and out-there as electronic producer and singer Ina Cube, the woman behind Laurel Halo. She's a true auteur, undefinable in any particular scene or pattern. Since her debut in 2010 with King Felix EP, she has willfully pushed her own set boundaries, every release a clean slate that erases all notions established for her audience. 2012's first full-length Quarantine was a contemplative and frequently distressing collection of cyberpunk-inspired ambient pop, where pitch-shifted or conversely, uglily untreated vocals, set out to confront what we consider acceptable in terms of the human voice. She took a left turn with the fraught and jagged instrumentals of Chance of Rain (2013), here, busy techno polyrythms clashed against beautiful ambient patches and jazzy detours. And now Dust blurs the line between vocal and instrumental orientation more radically than ever before. ''Joyful'' isn't a term I would have associated with Halo's previous work. Her aesthetic is defined by a sense of dehumanization that is, paradoxically, more human, more vulnerable and certainly more ambiguous than on the work of say, Kraftwerk or fellow Detroit natives Dopplereffekt. ''Dust'' amps up the human factor within, while still remaining inscrutable, elusive and alien. Even as we get close to an untold aspect of her personality, one more playful and less serious than we could imagine, it's at arms length. Gone on ''Dust'' are any traces of Detroit techno ambiance or of the percolating, nagging beats of the UK bass scene, with obscure jazz and soul influences now brought to the surface. The result is a formless and dizzying miasma of fractured time signatures, gaseous synth textures, mind-melting vocal manipulation and a sense of abstract groove redolent of Arthur Russell. Like an L and Who Won sound like Broadcast if they were more inspired by the tech-noir genre and David Fincher thrillers than 60s art films. Highlight Syzygy radiates with ultraviolet sweetness. Singles Jelly and Moontalk build surreal slices of life, the former out of a groove that moves like a five-foot rubberband and serpentine vocals from Halo at her most earnest; the latter a giddy collage of tribal percussion, dial tones, laughter samples and parts sung both in Japanese and English. All in all, ''Dust'' is not easy to digest, but given enough investment can lure the most alienated listener into its strangely inviting universe. Similar to her contemporaries Oneohtrix Point Never and Actress, Laurel Halo has the uncanny ability to layer up sounds that dissolve upon touch and play catch me with the listener. And like those same artists, she creates something more idiosyncratic and affecting than most artists on the electronic or 'IDM' tag.… Full Review »
See all user reviews »