NO PAIN IN POP
HALLS
'ARK'
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”A fantastic debut and surely a contender for album of the year. 9/10” The Line Of Best Fit
”Remarkably assured. Time is on this young talent's side.” NME
”One of the big hopes of European electronic pop“ PlayGround
”One of the year's more rewarding efforts“ Under The Radar
"An incredibly mature and moving debut record.” Bowlegs
"7.2" Pitchfork
Watch the video for lead single 'White Chalk'.
Halls is the solo project of 21 year old South London musician Sam Howard.
Ark - his brooding debut album - draws from a palette of crystalline melodies, intense production and panoramic instrumentation to create a deeply personal, constructivist work of art. Evocative in sound and yet isolationist in sentiment, the album is an intense, dramatic and emotive study of loss and modern anxiety set to a strained electronic sound track.
Howard's centrepiece tenor voice and his glitchy, scattered rhythms present Thom Yorke's The Eraser as an easy reference point, alongside other exponents of recent mutations in London's unique urban sound narrative such as The XX, Burial or Mount Kimbie.
Ark, however, also hints at another world beyond this. One of loop innovator Jan Jelinek's cut-and-paste percussion; the abstracted, intricate instrumentation of Efterklang; the deep choral swells of Justin Vernon's Bon Iver; haunting ambient composers Tim Hecker or Thomas Köner; and cerebral, minimal modern classicist Nils Frahm.
