Julian Charrière: Midnight Zone (CD)

Midnight Zone is an original soundtrack by composer and musician Laurel Halo, released on CD and created for a film by visual artist Julian Charrière. The film follows a drifting Fresnel lighthouse lens as it descends through the Clarion-Clipperton Fracture Zone, a remote region of the Pacific Ocean rich in rare metals and increasingly targeted for deep-sea mining. Along its journey, the lens illuminates a fragile underwater ecosystem inhabited by bioluminescent creatures, schools of fish, and elusive predators.

Halo's score combines electro-acoustic ambient music, drone, and sound design to evoke the mysterious depths of the ocean. Composed primarily using a Montage 8 synthesizer and Yamaha TransAcoustic piano, with layers of violin and viol da gamba, the music unfolds through subtle, atmospheric passages that reflect the tension between exploration, extraction, and preservation.

Released on Halo's imprint Awe, Midnight Zone accompanies Charrière's film of the same name, featured in the exhibition Julian Charrière: Deep End at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, November 15, 2026–June 6, 2027.