photo by chelsea ross
Hali Palombo is a composer, visual artist and filmmaker from Chicago, Illinois. Born in Northfield, Minnesota, she has had a natural curiosity about the Midwestern United States since a young age. Her work often weaves the absurdity and mundane beauty of Illinois into her records, short films, drawings and paintings.
Palombo is an avid practitioner of “plunderphonics”: sampling existing musical/aural works and intertwining them into something brand new, whether it’s shortwave radio and CB radio samples, wax cylinder audio, and field recordings taken from Midwestern points of interest. She also draws great inspiration from endless adventures throughout the country - be them on Google Maps or in her car - often photographing, filming or drawing her findings.
Palombo began making work at age 26, and despite getting somewhat of a late start for an artist, she has amassed a lush body of varied and careful work.
Her influences include Philip Glass, Flannery o’connor, jorge luis borges, and FermiLab National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, IL (she would like her ashes scattered there someday, hopefully not anytime soon).
“The Chicago composer and visual artist Hali Palombo has a knack for reanimating the dead. Her work is as much an exploration of technology as one of music, crafting sound collages from shortwave radio recordings and glitch art from footage of abandoned spaces.”
“Palombo’s sounds have real physicality to them; distinctive textures of moribund media from the subtle warble of gloriously imperfect radio transmissions.”