U.K.’S Haelos is wide awake in America
d FOR ALL THE flaws that’ve made it the country the world loves to hate, the United States of America is an endlessly fascinating, undeniably inspiring place.
Consider, on that front, part of the back story behind Any Random Kindness, the sophomore album from London, England, trip-hop revivalists Haelos.
The members of the then trio—arthur Delaney, Lotti Benardout, and Dom Goldsmith—spent plenty of time in the land of the free and the home of the increasingly batshit-crazy after the release of their debut full-length, Full Circle. (A fourth member, Daniel Vildosola, joined later.)
Some experiences could not have been more mind-blowing, including landing on the stage at the gold-standard superfestival known as Coachella.
Then there were moments of the more surreal variety, including the day in Texas Delaney discovered you don’t mess around with one of the country’s most cherished institutions.
“We were in Austin for South By Southwest when I was really getting into the beginning of researching for this record,” says the multi-instrumentalist—who shares singing duties with his bandmates—on the line from his London home. “I was wearing a jacket that had some bastardization of the NASA logo and someone came over to me and said, ‘You shouldn’t be wearing that—it’s actually illegal to do that to the NASA logo.’ I was like, ‘Yeah, whatever,’ and she pulled out a card to prove that
On its Any Random Kindness
she actually worked for NASA.” That quickly turned into a gift. “I was like, ‘Oh my God—this is crazy. I’ve literally been wanting to find someone I can talk to about climate change.’ It turned out she was a climate-change scientist. We ended up having a really long and dark conversation.”
That’s a tip-off that Haelos set out to tackle some big issues (climate change, social-media overload) on Any Random Kindness, which explains song titles like “End of World Party” and “Kyoto”. The album-ending “Last One Out (Turn the Lights Off)” starts with Delaney singing of a world where the water’s rising around him, and ends with “Come take my hand/we’ll dive where the cities lie in the bottom.”
“Full Circle was a very psychological and spiritual record,” Delaney says. “This one was all about ‘What the fuck is going on?’ So if Full Circle was an awakening record, this one is ‘Fuck— we’re awake and this is where we are.’ ”
Bleak as that sounds, Haelos sometimes goes the grand and opulent route on Any Random Kindness, with the synth-soaked “Empty Skies” layered with star-swept strings. The record also shows that the group is determined to move beyond the postbristol ambiance that marked its early material. The aforementioned “End of the World Party” draws heavily on classic ’80s B-boy hip-hop, while “Last One Out (Turn the Lights Off)” pays tribute to golden-sunset alt-country.
Haelos announces its sonic ambitiousness right off the top, with the cello-burnished opener, “Another Universe”, clocking in at over six minutes. Nowadays, that might as well be six hours. But if that seems crazy, it’s somehow in keeping with the times—and not just in America.
“There’s a sort of powerlessness to it all where all you can do is go about your daily life as all these big, seismic things shift around in the background,” Delaney says. “It’s anxiety-producing because you can’t feel like you can do anything about it. And that’s definitely part of the record. But there’s also a real beauty to life. Hopefully, we’ve made something that captures that balance.”
Mike Usinger