Under the name of King Felix, Ina Cube originally delivered her space-sounds in a purely instrumental manner. Now, on her debut as Laurel Halo, she is singing on every single track – and what a singing it is! The vocals are always mixed to the foreground, the lyrics contain somewhat disturbing topics such as tumors and cadavers. The fifths intervals in the melodies often remind the listener of Björk, her voice’s timbre of Kate Bush and the low-pitched vocal tracks seem to bear Fever Ray’s signature. Still, »Quarantine« sounds like something new, something unique, and, as a whole, is without comparison. The way the individual parts are combined, it seems as if they are not supposed to fit at the beginning – very much like the album’s brightly colored pop-art-cover with Japanese girls on it, which only on second glance turns out to be a school for hara-kiri. The vocals meet layers of ambient, techno-trained synthz-chords or subsonic bass-wobbling. Like in the music of her partner, Daniel Lopatin a.k.a. Oneohtrix Point Never, the tracks often lack a clear beat, the piano-samples sound as if they were looped somewhat sloppily, but it makes them sound adventurously off-track. In the end, the initial irritation quickly makes room for a fascination – also because Laurel Halo sings »Words are just words that you soon forget« in the last track and thereby takes the gloominess out of the previous lyrics.
Quarantine
