Introducing Onyx Halo: An AI Band Creation, Bringing a Songwriter’s Past Back to Life, and Into the Future
In 2026, after nearly three decades away from songwriting, Merseyside‑born creator Stuart Hartley is stepping back into the music world with a project unlike anything he could have imagined in his early twenties. His new venture, Onyx Halo, is a fully AI‑generated band, but the heart, the stories, and the songs are entirely his.
Between 1990 and 1995, Hartley lived for music. Armed with a home setup and a 4‑track recorder, he wrote relentlessly, capturing raw, unfiltered demos and sending them to A&R departments with the kind of determination only youth and ambition can fuel. But professional recording was financially out of reach, and the industry’s rejections eventually pushed him toward a different path. By 25, he stepped away from songwriting and built a successful career as Managing Director of a manufacturing company: a future built on grit, stability, and long-term focus. Yet music has a way of waiting for the right moment.
In 2025, Hartley discovered emerging AI music technology and realised he could finally give his early songs the production they always deserved. He uploaded his original 4‑track demos — some nearly 30 years old — and watched them evolve into fully produced, modern tracks that retained the emotional core of the originals. The process didn’t just revive old material; it reignited his creativity. Hartley began writing new songs again, blending the urgency of his early work with the perspective of a life fully lived.
To bring this new chapter to life visually and conceptually, he created Onyx Halo — an AI‑powered band designed to embody the sound, the story, and the evolution of a songwriter returning to his craft.
Onyx Halo are fully Hartley’s creation too: a four‑piece band who met at the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts: a fictional origin story that reflects the spirit of the music rather than the literal process behind it. The band’s narrative is part of the project’s creative identity, but the music itself is entirely real: written by Hartley, produced with AI, and shaped by the emotional truth of his journey.
The band members are Art, Lee, Stone, and Jax – who each bring their own imagined histories, influences, and textures to the project. Art, the Toronto-born bassist with songwriter instincts and calm precision. Lee, the Dublin guitarist whose playing carries both fire and poetry. Stone, a Liverpool native with Jamaican roots, grounding the music in rhythm, groove, and heritage. Jax, from the Wirral, stitching everything together with rhythm guitar and harmonica, keeping the songs rooted when they threaten to drift skyward.
Onyx Halo began as a folk‑rock act, but their sound naturally expands into rock, indie, blues, and cinematic atmospheres. They treat folk not as a genre but as a foundation — a heartbeat — while exploring whatever sonic territory feels right. In essence, the band are a ‘rebirth’, not a reinvention. They herald the return of a songwriter who never truly stopped being one, someone who carried unfinished music for decades and finally found the tools to finish the story.
The result is the album ‘Black Light’, released on 26th February 2026, a body of work that feels both nostalgic and new, grounded in the honesty of folk but unafraid to explore wider horizons. It’s a testament to what happens when old dreams meet new possibilities.
LISTEN TO THE ALBUM ON SPOTIFY: