Laurel Halo - King Felix EP (2010) [Hippos In Tanks] // Grade: A-

Cue the Kate Bush comparisons. Call it way obvious, but Brooklyn singer/producer Laurel Halo has such the theatrical Fairlight vibe about her, it’s impossible not to connect those dots. King Felix could be our modern Hounds of Love—just instead of that extended “Running Up That Hill” 12-inch cut, we’ve got Oneohtrix Point Never on a space-ride re-edit through Halo’s “Metal Confection”.

But let’s be serious: most of King Felix is a space-ride, Oneohtrix or no. The Signature Halo Sound is one of fallen angels and glitter, slinky synth-pop hovering just below the heavens. Thick layers of vocal harmony going creepy, then choral; a perpetual starlit twinkling. And though some tracks find a split-second of Animal Collective or Pet Shop Boys (“Embassy” and “Supersymmetry”, respectively), they never threaten the EP’s Halo-only POV. If anything, those moments ground it: body in the clouds, just one toe on Earth.

And it should tell you something that, only one EP and a couple self-releases in, Halo’s already created such a sonic niche. Not to belabor the reference, but Kate Bush too found a preliminary signature with debut The Kick Inside—even as early as “Wuthering Heights”, Bush sounded like nobody so much as herself—and we know where she went from there: better and better, weirder and cooler, so much further out. Halo already makes beauty feel dangerous and danger feel comforting; we already know her songs, her voice, her whole angelic atmosphere when we hear it. Now there’s nothing left to do but to wait, excitedly, for where among the heavens her next songs will go.

- Rue Sauvage