Artist: The Album Leaf
Title: A Chorus Of Storytellers
Label: Sub Pop!
Genre: Indie
Bitrate: 193kbit av.
Time: 00:49:48
Size: 72.65 mb
Rip Date: 2010-01-25
Str Date: 2010-02-01
01. Perro 2:55
02. Blank Pages 4:28
03. There Is A Wind 5:47
04. Within Dreams 4:46
05. Falling From The Sun 4:56
06. Stand Still 4:50
07. Summer Fog 4:43
08. Until The Last 4:16
09. We Are 4:04
10. Almost There 4:54
11. Tied Knots 4:09
Release Notes:
Since founding the group in 1998 in San Diego California, Jimmy LaValle
has travelled some way, from lo-fi, improvised, home-recorded
beginnings to the sleekly crafted orchestration of A Chorus of
Storytellers. There is, in its overall serene, melancholic sweep, a
sense of a long journey undertaken, whose good outcome is assured and
yet which is tinged throughout with the vague sadness that accompanies
any such odyssey û the loss of that which is left behind, as well as
the knowledge that arrival will bring the process of travelling to an
end.
There is a subtle difference in the tan and inflexion of this, their
fifth album and their first since 2006. It was recorded in Seattle but
remixed in Iceland by J≤n Birgisson of Sigur R≤s and seems to bear the
hallmarks of that migration. Moreover, rather than LaValle playing all
the instruments himself as he usually does, he has involved all the
members of his touring group, including multi-instrumentalist Matthew
Resovich, guitarist Drew Andrews, bassist Luis Hermosillo and an
Icelandic horn section, whose presence does indeed fill out this
storytelling chorus.
On early tracks like Blank Pages, the mood is at once folkish and yet
futuristic also û the vast, empty uncertainty of the post-rock world
spread out yonder before us. However, as the album progresses, with its
mix of violins, guitar, synths and fitful percussion, a paradoxical
mood and feel is established û desolate yet comforting, glacial yet
warm, remote yet intimate, never more so than on Summer Fog. At times,
you're reminded of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra in their more ruminative
moments. Occasionally, as with the scratchy backbeat of Within Dreams,
or the rocky, percussive left turn taken on We Are, the trajectory of
the album is temporarily disrupted û which is just as well, because if
there's a danger about The Album Leaf, it's that their gentle strains
can come across as unassuming and incidental.
However, with vocal contributions from The Black Heart Procession's
Pall Jenkins and remixer Birgisson, A Chorus of Storytellers rises
nicely to its resolution, with Almost There and Tied Knots bringing
together all the strands, energy and personnel that make up the album
to a quietly affirmative conclusion.
sire@hush.ai