For her latest project, Laurel Halo turns her attention to the deepest parts of the ocean.
Midnight Zone, composed as the original score for a film by Julian Charrière, follows a drifting Fresnel lighthouse lens as it sinks through the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, a remote Pacific seabed increasingly targeted for deep-sea mining.
In Charrière’s film, the abyss emerges not as darkness but as a fragile, luminous ecosystem populated by bioluminescent life and slow-moving predators.
Halo’s compositions mirror this strange environment. Built from electro-acoustic ambient passages, drones, and subtle orchestral textures, the score drifts between synthetic sound and physical resonance, recorded using a Montage 8 synthesizer and Yamaha TransAcoustic piano in New York City. Released on her own imprint Awe, the album expands the atmospheric world hinted at on Atlas.
Midnight Zone is central to Charrière’s current solo exhibition at Kunstmuseum, Wolfsburg, Germany, which runs from 14th March to 12th July, 2026, exploring underwater ecologies and the fragility of the deep ocean. Here, Halo discusses composing to image, sonic gravity, and imagining music from a perspective beyond the human…
You grew up in Detroit. What were the first sounds that really stayed with you?
I remember transport sounds a lot as a kid. Hearing the train whistle carry on from a distance at night. I remember being fascinated by going to the airport as a young kid when I would visit family in New York and the sound of airplanes taking off and landing and the confusion of boarding and gate announcements.
Do you remember the first film score that made you aware of music as atmosphere rather than background?
Probably Solaris — the way that that ambient synth sounds were used to become sound design to imitate deteriorating headspace, the sound of the space station, or the sound of the planet.
What drew you to Midnight Zone in the first place, and did you compose directly to picture?
I was drawn to working on Midnight Zone because I was a fan of Julian Charrière’s work and general outlook. His work addresses big topics surrounding environmental collapse, but handles them with nuance and precision. He also pays a lot of attention to sound which I appreciate. I was composing to picture when I worked on the score.
Working with Julian Charrière, did the music develop in parallel with the images or in response to them?
Fully in response to the images. I was working with an edit of the film the whole time.
The deep ocean in the film feels luminous rather than dark. Did that shift how you approached tone and texture?
I think this was an interesting score to work on, because of the duality of the dynamic that was being brought out in both the visual and the music. The fact that the ocean at that depth already has crushing pressure and yet there are schools of fish, sharks and bioluminescent creatures essentially floating, soaring or even dancing in their natural element. Julian stressed the importance of the music not having specifically a sense of ‘awe’ or ‘wonder’ but rather approaching from a perspective perhaps non-human or dissociated from a human perspective. Not necessarily otherworldly, or alien, but also not anthropomorphizing.
You blend digital synthesis with the physical resonance of piano and strings. Are you consciously exploring the space between technology and touch?
I think that it relates to this idea of creating a feeling that is quite heavy and dense in the music, but that also contains traces of lightness, levity or air. It’s also unmistakeable that the film is containing traces of a human element, there being a Fresnel lens that once existed above sea level as an eye or oracle now abstracted into this territory it once prior had only a glimpse of.
What was the most challenging part of scoring this project?
The film is wordless and has very sleight-of-hand, almost imperceptible edits. The entire film is essentially a descent – not without rises in energy or drama, but without dialogue or cuts it was necessary to write longer form pieces that conveyed the descent, pulsation, variations in luminosity and texture.
Your studio practice often feels very tactile and precise. Are you fast when capturing ideas, or do you let them unfold slowly?
Sometimes I’m fast, but mostly slow. It’s honestly a lot of patience, and trial and error. I generally work in short bursts for a few hours at a time, and then have to take breaks and do something else because I’ll stop hearing what I’m doing. Most good ideas happen decisively and quickly, but that’s because of a good recording take or a sudden burst of inspiration. There’s a lot of bad and mid ideas in between the good ones and so the process just requires patience in the form of diligence, practice, ears training, listening and decision making skills. Collaboration is essential for getting better and wrapping your head around new ideas you wouldn’t have considered otherwise.
Many artists are reflecting on AI right now. Do you see it as a threat, a tool, or simply another phase in music technology?
I don’t know if I’m an authority to talk on it. I think it’s corny to use it creatively. Maybe it’s more interesting to use as a tool.
When you move between your own albums and a film score like this, does your mindset change?
Yeah, it’s impossible to have the same mindset. Working on a score or a composition you are working in a creative team – it’s a full collaboration. The music exists as atmosphere, scaffolding, tone, but not the thing in and of itself. Artist albums you can dive deep and worldbuild.
Looking back at Atlas now, how does it sit with you?
I am glad that Atlas touched people the way it did. It was a record that cut to the spiritual quick and I had to bleed a bit for it to happen.
Finally, what does the near future look like for you creatively?
Coming up I’m doing a short run of live score versions of Midnight Zone in Berlin, London, Istanbul and the Hague. Before that I’m going to Tokyo as Jil Sander is releasing some of the runway music I composed for them as a phonosheet that’s part of a zine they are making for the stores. Other than this just practicing scales and starting to build repertoire again. I got a new drum machine so I’m excited to get into learning that as well. Have a couple collaborations I can’t talk about now but they should be out soon…
Text BILLY BURRELL
Portrait CALLE HENKEL and MAX PITEGOFF
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
