Laurel Halo: Chance of Rain

Quarantine, the debut album from the woman born Ina Cube, was one of the most adventurous releases of 2012. Those who caught Laurel Halo's live shows in the album's wake will have gotten a taster for where her head was going for round two. Like the forceful tech precision of those shows, Chance of Rain delivers a pulsating ream of thumping peak-time electronica. If the trajectories of previous incarnations and iterations were ambient and deliciously off-kilter, this is very much of a one-track mind, with Halo neatly sidestepping all expectations. Halo works the buttons to create an experience with nods to 1990s rave (Ainnome), twitchy minimal fare (Thrax), and post-industrial hardcore (Melt). It's an edgy, occasionally claustrophobic, sometimes uneasy and hugely intense listen. The machines very much have the upper hand. laurelhalo.com Download: Ainnome, Thrax