Quarantine (Laurel Halo album)
| Quarantine | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Studio album by Laurel Halo | ||||
| Released | May 21, 2012 | |||
| Recorded | July 2011–February 2012 Brooklyn, US and London, UK |
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| Genre | ||||
| Length | 41:19 | |||
| Label | Hyperdub | |||
| Laurel Halo chronology | ||||
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| Professional ratings | |
|---|---|
| Aggregate scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Metacritic | 80/100 |
| Review scores | |
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   |
| Drowned in Sound | (8/10) |
| Fact |  |
| The Guardian | |
| NME | (6/10) |
| Pitchfork | (8/10) |
| The Quietus | (favourable) |
| Resident Advisor | (4/5) |
| Tiny Mix Tapes |   |
Quarantine is the debut album by American electronic musician Laurel Halo, released in 2012 on the Hyperdub label. It received generally positive reviews from critics, and was named album of the year by British magazine The Wire.
Halo recorded Quarantine between July 2011 and February 2012 primarily in her home studio, with some instrument tracks also recorded in London. She made over thirty demos, eighteen of which were deleted. In November 2011, Halo sent the LP demos to Hyperdub label head Steve Goodman, who responded with positive interest.
Initially applying extensive echo and reverb to her vocals, which she found "supremely boring," Halo instead opted to leave them dry and unadorned, stating that "it was tempting to use autotune but I decided against it because there’s this brutal, sensual ugliness in the vocals uncorrected, and painfully human vocals made sense." Speaking to Fact, she described the album's thematic focus as "contrails, trauma, volatile chemicals, viruses."
The album cover features an adaptation of Harakiri School Girls, a work by Makoto Aida which Halo chose for the artwork after seeing it an exhibition on Japanese pop art in New York. She stated that "I love that it’s brutal and violent but colourful and slow to sink in."
Quarantine received positive critical reviews from critics, with an aggregate score of 80 out of 100 on Metacritic.The Wire named the release ‘Album of the Year’ in December 2012. Ian Cohen of Pitchfork called the album was "something definitive " and Halo's "best and most cohesive work to date." The Quietus called it "one of this year's most intriguing and divisive listens," and noted that "what's blasted her music headlong into the future is its re-integration of those most ancient of musical devices - the unadorned human voice, verse/chorus structures – into environments they’re usually so thoroughly unfamiliar with."The Guardian wrote that "it manages to sidestep pretension at almost every turn, partly due to the near-naive vocals that dominate the warm crackle and glow."Resident Advisor states "Quarantine binds her past sounds into a toxic, lush blend of ambient suspension and disorienting detail," and called the album Halo’s "most immersive and beautiful work to date."Tiny Mix Tapes described the album as "conflicted, ambivalent, complex" and praised its sound as that of "new territory being trod."
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Wikipedia