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Halogen Star - The Hunstrete Bow

Runtime: 1:03:17

To anyone intently following the trajectory of Merseyside-based techno artist Gareth Sloan, an album like 'The Hunstrete Bow' was inevitable. His bounty of releases under the Halogen Star, while at once a gradual, devoted refinement of his core style, a sound built around cavernous atmosphere, four-to-the-flour grooves and hypnotic repetition, has also seen the sly encroachment of sinister sentiment.

His trademark approach, a note of consistency across every full-length Halogen Star release, might compel the casual listener to ignore the pockets within these albums where Sloan chose to venture outside the comforts of formula and into the forested gloom. These experiments and gothic leanings would only grow more detectable over time, less a trace and more a distinct flavor in mingle with his other influences. Albums like 'Notion of a Somebody' gave this brooding, dark personality a chance to take monologue, if only for a rousing track or two.

It wasn't until 'The Hunstrete Bow' that we would see this side of Halogen Star in full, dark overgrowth, consuming the identity of his work and snaking into nearly the entire tracklist. 'The Hunstrete Bow' retains the savory production that makes his work so accessible, its shimmering, futuristic sound luring the listener down its shadowed corridors. This is a Halogen Star album in every sense, though something of a nether twin forged 'neath an inverse sun than the one which fed creations like 'God's Channel' or the directly referenced 'Never Ending'.

'The Hunstrete Bow' spurs one to consider the ways in which untracked behaviors take fuller form when viewed across the context of time. Sloan himself being an avid streamer of horror games has found himself manifesting those same haunted spaces in his personal realm of sound. Spooky, nocturnal and ethereal, this album represents a very compelling shift in sensibility for the prolific electronic producer, one that we hope to see explored to its darkest, most thrilling ends.

Recorded, mixed and mastered by Halogen Star
Cover art by Halogen Star 

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