“Belleville”

Laurel Halo has historically wielded the piano with about as much calm as a small dog on the Fourth of July. Her hand barely straying from the keys, the composer and DJ has highlighted the instrument’s potential for nervous dissonance, generating skittering, anxious clusters of notes that further twist her already elegantly jagged production. “Belleville,” the lead single of Halo’s upcoming album Atlas, is both a return and departure for the artist, a reacquaintance with the piano that breaks from her usual jittery sound. Recorded in one take, the song’s atmosphere is drafty, softened around the edges by a blanket of dusty reverb and suffused with palpable nostalgia. Halo lingers lovingly on each note, and the sustained attention she dedicates to each moment leads to a surprising pay-off as the song crests into a stacked hum of strings and vocals from Coby Sey. The effect is like wandering through an empty mansion and stumbling upon a grand ball. When it subsides just as quickly, Halo’s piano is all that remains, leaving a mournful trail in its wake.