WEEKEND MUSIC PT. 86 – LAUREL HALO

WEEKEND MUSIC PT. 86 – LAUREL HALO

IMAGE COURTESY OF CALLA HENKEL & MAX PITEGOFF

Laurel Halo returns with an album of original soundtrack music composed for Julian Charrière’s Exhibition Midnight Zone, following a drifting Fresnel lighthouse lens as it descends through the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, a remote, mineral-rich abyssal plain in the Pacific Ocean. The film portrays the deep as a luminous, fragile ecosystem rather than a void, teeming with bioluminescent creatures and life caught in tides of uncertainty.

In conversation, Halo discusses the delicate tension between synthetic sound and the tactile resonance of the piano, translating the visual and emotional landscape of the deep ocean into a sonic environment. Her score moves slowly, unfolding with electro-acoustic ambient textures, drone, and strings, reflecting the immersive, otherworldly character of Charrière’s imagery.

Midnight Zone is central to Charrière’s solo exhibition of the same name, which runs at Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg, Germany, from March 14 to July 12, 2026, exploring underwater ecologies and the complexity of water as an elemental medium affected by human activity.

Halo will perform the score live in Berlin at Zenner on 2nd April, as part of a four-date European series, alongside shows in London, Istanbul, and The Hague.

BB: Your work often feels like an environment rather than a narrative. When you begin composing, are you building a space to inhabit or searching for a particular state of mind?

LAUREL HALO: Maybe both those things. I love this Lao Tzu quote from the tao te ching, ‘cut doors and windows to make a room. Where the room isn’t, there’s room for you. So the profit in what is, is in the use of what isn’t.” It feels like with composing it’s more about this kind of approach with music making, rather than the kind of worldbuilding that comes with recording artist albums.

BB: When you first encountered Julian Charrière’s underwater imagery, what emotional atmosphere did it suggest to you?

LH: The first time I was shown the material it was suggested to not interpret too much from a human lens, to not anthropomorphize the material too much.

BB: The music feels suspended, as if it has no clear beginning or end. Were you interested in creating a sense of weightlessness?

LH: I think I was just responding to the visual. It made a lot of sense to have this kind of music be the sonic support. It’s interesting to think about the pressure of being that far underwater, and how effortlessly the sea life swims and dances through it.

BB: There is a noticeable restraint in the score. Was holding back an intentional gesture?

LH: I didn’t want the music to sound overly epic, sentimental or foreboding. It’s hard to make this kind of music with a more naturalistic approach. I guess I’m musically anthropormorphizing whether I want to or not, as I am approximating with the score the feeling of what it might be like to experience that remote region of the Pacific in total darkness.

BB: The deep ocean is often described as alien, yet here it feels intimate and almost tender. Did you relate to it as a landscape, a body, or something else?

LH: Maybe the music was relating more to the smallness of the Fresnel lens, removed from its natural setting as a lighthouse ‘eye’ to become this momentary intruder or observer. Also there was a certain lyricism or tenderness to the shots of bioluminescent creatures later on in the film I was probably responding to.

BB: You move between synthetic sound and the physical resonance of the piano. What draws you to that tension between the digital and the tactile?

LH: I guess it’s something I’ve always been drawn to, the somewhat alien effect or element of surprise.

BB: The strings bring a warmth that feels human but distant, almost like memory. What role does vulnerability play in this piece?

LH: I guess that might be more a question for the filmmaker than me. It sounded like it was quite a challenging project to film given the dangerous context. The Clarion-Clipperton Zone is itself highly vulnerable given that it’s so rich in rare earth minerals.

BB: The Clarion Clipperton Zone is both luminous and under threat. Did that fragility shape your emotional approach while composing?

LH: Maybe, it’s hard to say. I think there’s some sympathy that lies with the region.

BB: In a gallery, listeners rarely stay still. Did you imagine someone drifting in and out of the work as it plays?

LH: Yes, I think that was part of the intention. I had experimented with a more thematic approach initially, but as viewers will likely drift in and out of the film, it wasn’t necessarily the best approach.

BB: After living with this abyssal environment for so long, did it change how you experience silence?

LH: I experience a fair amount of basic silence in my day to day life – when I’m not making music I like to give my ears a break. Sometimes it’s a bit boring to not listen to music as it’s more motivating when doing tasks, but it’s nice to allow some headspace. I guess I never experience real silence though. Where I live and work in LA is a backhouse on a hill that is surrounded by other people’s homes. My studio faces a persistent onslaught of home improvement, construction, leafblowers, dogs and helicopters. Plus my windchime goes off a lot of the time, and I hear the police sirens and garbage trucks in my neighborhood a lot. There’s a lot of mysterious booms at night, and I also hear owls and coyotes. There was a citywide celebratory drone when the Dodgers won the World Series a second year in a row. It feels unnatural when there’s too much silence. I’m already sitting alone with my thoughts enough of the time!

Laurel Halo performs the Midnight Zone score live at:

Berlin, Zenner, 2nd April 2026 (Analogue Foundation)

London, ICA, 4th April 2026

Istanbul, Sónar, 10th April 2026

The Hague, Rewire Festival, 11th April 2026