John Tejada & Laurel Halo – Shade / Happy Trees EP

Reading Time:

Following the milestone release of Palette 100, John Tejada continues the label’s 30th anniversary year with Shade / Happy Trees, a new two-track collaboration with Laurel Halo.

The release brings together two artists with long histories in electronic music, both currently based in Los Angeles and connected through CalArts. Tejada and Halo recently explored more experimental and atmospheric territory. They decided to meet in person to create something more driving. The result is two tracks they have been describing simply as “bangers”: music built with club systems in mind, but still full of detail, atmosphere, and a slightly left-field edge.

“Shade” leans darker and more focused, pairing a driving rhythmic structure with tense harmonic movement and shadowed textures. “Happy Trees” opens things up with more lift and playfulness, balancing low-end pressure, melodic fragments, and a loose, surreal sense of motion. Both tracks carry the feeling of two distinct musical voices finding a natural way to meet in the studio.

For Tejada, the release marks a recent return to rhythm-forward material on Palette. He reconnects with the club-focused side of his work. He carries over the texture and mood of his newer productions. Halo brings her own deeply personal language of atmosphere, low-end movement, improvisational detail, and sonic nuance, shaping the tracks into something that feels immediate without becoming obvious.

Laurel Halo

Laurel Halo is an American composer, producer and musician, born in Detroit and based in Los Angeles. Her music is renowned for its nuance, character and focused vision, where ambient, musique concrète, low-end rhythms and improvisatory piano come together in a cohesive tapestry. She’s released a number of albums and collaborated across the realms of club music, concert music, film and fashion.

John Tejada

John Tejada is a Vienna-born, Los Angeles-based electronic music composer, KCRW DJ, and professor at CalArts. Active since 1994, Tejada has released a vast catalog including five albums for Kompakt, as well as work on Pokerflat, Cocoon, Brainfeeder, Seventh City, Playhouse, Defected, and his own long-running imprint Palette Recordings. His work includes more than 100 remixes and collaborations across the electronic music community.