: :
: |
|_ ________________ :
/ \_/ _______ .F i X E D G E A R--------+
| \___/ //________________________________
|_ ._______ ___ ._______________ /|
\_ _____/| \ \ / / | \_ ______/ /|+|FiXIE
| __) | |\ \/ / | || __) _/__|
| \ | | \ \ | || \___ \
| \ /|| | / /\ \ | || \ \
\___ // ||___//__/ \ / | _/ \ \ \
\ \// \__________/\\/ |/ \___________ ._\
\_____/_______________________... |
| |
_| |_
+_________\ p r o u d (t o) p r e s e n t /_________+
| |2
| |0
| ---- + Release Info + --------------------------------------+ |1
| |7
. .
Artist...: The Album Leaf
Album....: Into The Blue Again
Genre....: Indie
Label....: Sub Pop
Lang.....: English
Year.....: 2006
Source...: CDDA
Rip.date.: 07-17-2017
St.date..: 09-12-2006
Encoder..: FLAC 1.3.1
Quality..: 768 kbps Avg 44.1kHz 2 channels
---- + Track List + ---------------------------------------
01 The Light 4:29
02 Always For You 5:07
03 Shine 5:53
04 Writings On The Wall 4:55
05 Red-Eye 7:01
06 See In You 4:37
07 Into The Sea 4:31
08 Wherever I Go 4:38
09 Wishful Thinking 5:32
10 Broken Arrow 5:48
Total Size.: 10 Files/304.3MB/52:31 min
---- + Release Note + -------------------------------------
It's never easy for a rock critic to write about ambient music,
or to say why the work of one particular artist (say, Brian Eno)
is vastly preferable to another (New Age schlockmeister
Jean-Michel Jarre, for example). Much of it comes down to feel:
Some music moves you emotionally, and some doesn't. Jimmy
LaValle, who issues his recordings under the name the Album
Leaf, makes ambient music that moves me.
"There's definitely feeling behind the music; to make an ambient
record, it's not just putting a sound on each track for five
minutes on each track," LaValle says. "There are definitely more
things that go into it -- there is emotion or expression behind
it. It's kind of vulnerable when you look at it that way,
because you can think of these artists as being emotional and
really caring about what that is. It's such spacious music, that
it's more vulnerable than your classic-rock band or some group
screaming about breaking up with a girlfriend. That's pretty
vulnerable, but it seems that ambient artists, because of the
moodiness of the music, well, they're just more susceptible to
people really trying to dissect what they do."
The San Diego-based musician has actually done a lot of
different things during a busy career as an underground
musician, working with the post-rock band Tristeza;
noise-rockers the Locust; the punk-funk group GoGoGo Airheart
and the hard-core band the Black Heart Procession. But the Album
Leaf is clearly the project nearest and dearest to his heart.
LaValle has issued four albums under the moniker to date,
including the recent "Into the Blue Again" on Sub Pop Records,
and he's been building a growing following ever since the Album
Leaf (which expands to a quartet or quintet for live
performances, with a drummer, a guitarist/keyboardist or two and
a multi-instrumentalist) was tapped to open for kindred spirits
Sigur Ros on tour in 2001.
"I'm pretty much always recording something -- any kind of idea
or whatever," LaValle says. "I'll just throw it down, and
sometimes it gets buried, and sometimes it gets worked on.
Sometimes, it all gets finished that day."
LaValle recorded much of "Into the Blue Again" outside Seattle,
but he traveled to Iceland to mix the disc at Sigur Ros' home
studio. "The main reason that I like to work there is Birgir Jon
Birgisson. He's basically the engineer of the studio, and he's
the one who recorded all of my last record ['In a Safe Place,'
2004]. He's really good at my music -- he has the ear for it,
and really great ears in general -- and the [mixing] board there
is really, really nice, with cool EQs and a good tone. If you're
a studio geek then those kinds of things appeal to you. Plus,
there's something special just about being in Reykjavik.
"I'm definitely influenced by my surroundings. Iceland puts you
in a state of mind, and I guess it's a blissful state -- a
clear-headed state where you take time to really think about
stuff. The whole country is one of the most relaxed countries
I've ever been to. They procrastinate about everything, and
nothing ever gets done!" [Laughs.]
The songs on "Into the Blue Again" don't mark much of a
departure from earlier Album Leaf recordings: As in the past,
LaValle's hushed vocals are often hidden in lush mixes of
keyboard drones, percolating electronic rhythms, slowly
unfolding piano and violin parts and an evocative swirl of sound
that is partly the result of samples of the sounds in the world
around him. "I use all kinds of weird stuff: cars driving by,
planes going overhead, whatever. My thought process behind these
things is that if a song was written when it was raining, the
rain should be recorded as well, because it was part of the
inspiration for that song."
The fanzine press has been less enthusiastic about "Into the
Blue Again" than it was on the Album Leaf's earlier albums, but
to this listener, the disc is as strong as anything LaValle has
recorded, and much of the criticism that the music isn't a
departure from earlier sounds can be attributed to the
aforementioned difficulties in saying exactly what is that makes
a piece of ambient music appealing.
"It's really sad to say, but I'm kind of looking ahead to the
next record, because some of the reviews I've gotten basically
said, 'This is great! It's more of the same thing, but it's
great!' It never really affected me before, but now I'm kind of
thinking about what new thing I can do or incorporate --
different songs, different feels -- that would be ultimate
depth. It's all about the imagery in the pieces to me, and
anything that can make me try to give the listener a new
experience -- to feel something different -- well, that's a good
thing, because that's what my music and ambient music in general
is about."
Url: http://thealbumleaf.com/
. .
| |
| |
| |
+________________________________________________since_2012_______+