Berlin producer Laurel Halo performs at this year’s Daphne festival and releases her first film scoreon March 13, 2020 at 9:58 pm

In January 2018, Berlin-based dance producer, vocalist, and composer Laurel Halo tweeted that she’d written a score for Possessed, a documentary by Rob Schroder and Metahaven, a Dutch design collective that’s branched out into film since forming in 2007. Metahaven’s work focuses on the dystopian aspects of our present lives, and those themes are central to Possessed, which navigates a wide range of technological horrors–some are obviously frightening (facial recognition software), and others are so quotidian we engage with them almost thoughtlessly (YouTube makeup tutorials). In her score, which Vinyl Factory will release next month, Halo uses minimal piano melodies and eerie electronics to evoke paranoia, terror, melancholy, and beauty. Violinist Galya Bisengalieva and cellist Oliver Coates help add detail to the atmosphere, whether they’re underscoring the awfulness of the neoliberal hellscape (the sawtoothed strings on the anxious “Zeljava”) or expressing a simple reverence for classical tradition (the cordial melodies of the three-part “Rome Theme”). Even in its darkest moments, though, Halo’s score has enough heart to give me hope we’ll find ways to survive. v

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