Listen: HÆLOS - "Dust"

Under the falling minor chord progression, under the stomping beat, under the androgynous falsetto, it echoes over and over, one of the few constants in a song that seems to be subtly changing shape in every second. The note is the beacon echoing from a satellite, unchanging as everything around it charges full bore in to the unknown.

This analogy seems appropriate for a song that sounds—and feels, from the lack of information available about the artists themselves—like a message in a bottle tied to a rocket and launched in to space, waiting for eager ears to find it. Given the context, it’s unclear whether a line like “what happened to us” is about the state of two human beings or capital-h Humanity as viewed from afar. But HÆLOS, whoever they may be, aren’t telling, and “Dust” doesn’t either.