The Album Leaf - A dive into the blue

In 1997, Jimmy LaValle was part of an obscure San Diego post-rock band, Tristeza, alongside Christopher Sprague, Luis Hermosillo and James Lehner. The group proved too limiting for him, though, and within less than twelve months he decided to create an alter ego called The Album Leaf to release music that was more romantic and melancholic. The debut album, An Orchestrated Rise To Fall (1999), came out the same year as Tristeza's debut, “Spine and Sensory”. The two bands' careers ran on parallel tracks for a while, before Jimmy decided to devote himself full-time to The Album Leaf.

From the gorgeous cover art of An Orchestrated Rise To Fall alone, you're catapulted into a world of dreams and stretched-out sensations. The music of the opening track confirms that impression: “Wander” is a hallucinatory masterpiece, an improvisation built on sequences of rhodes and synthesizers. Had the track come out of a studio in Berlin or Cologne instead of a remote San Diego studio, critics would have been shouting about a miracle, invoking patron saints like Cluster and Neu!. Melancholy imprisons the acoustic guitar arpeggios of Jimmy LaValle, sole architect of this art, born probably from the ashes of post-rock but grown with a thousand disparate reference points. The quality of the recordings doesn't stop The Album Leaf from building one of the true best kept secrets of the '90s, which reaches its peak in the extremely long (even longer in the vinyl version) “A Short Story”, a moving twenty-minute ride capable of finding common ground with the finest moments of all indie rock, past and future (at the time, Sigur Rós were still a purely Icelandic phenomenon). Songs aren't what interests Jimmy LaValle, at least not yet. What the young Californian composer is trying to communicate through his art is a magical atmosphere in which to immerse the listener. The four tracks that make up In An Off White Room Ep (2001) are a continuous search for a union between beauty and reality.

The Album Leaf's second official album has a sticker on the sleeve that recalls Jimmy LaValle's other band, Tristeza. One Day I’ll Be On Time (2001)partly abandons the experimentalism of earlier releases, moving toward a fluid, dreamy song form whose strength lies in melodic beauty, which from here on remains at the center of LaValle's compositions. Guitar and piano alternate in sketching out these melodies, capable of conjuring serene, dreamlike atmospheres.

The gorgeous “Another Day” is the standout on A Lifetime Or More (a split album with On!Air!Library!), a double six-track Ep, the first three of which are credited to The Album Leaf. Jimmy recorded his tracks during the autumn of 2002, improvising as always on piano, fender rhodes and synthesizers: “Essex” confirms LaValle's gift for conjuring beguiling, moonlit atmospheres; “Lamplight” slows things down perhaps too much, and the effect isn't quite the same as on the first two compositions. The remaining three tracks by On!Air!Library! don't live up to the album's first half.

Released in 2003 as part of the Ep series on the Spanish label Acuarela, Seal Beach Ep contains five tracks recorded in June 2003. LaValle's gradual drift toward the hopelandic atmospheres of Sigur Rós is already evident on the opening track of this Ep, "Malmo". The melody of the following "Brennevin" is enriched by Matt Resovich's violin, while the rhodes is wrapped in electronics that seem to come straight from the grooves of Telefon Tel Aviv's debut, "Fahrenheit Fair Enough". "Seal Beach" enchants with its rarefied atmosphere, and this time LaValle truly manages to move the listener. "Christiansands" apes a rock ballad, complete with drums and arpeggiated guitar, and does so in the best possible way. "One Minute" is as delicate and precious as a primrose amid the snows of March.

But the real turning point comes with the following album, for which Jimmy LaValle chooses Iceland, a "place of the soul" even more than a place of inspiration teeming with artistic ferment: besides its unmistakable flavor, In A Safe Place features the generous involvement of illustrious collaborators from the Nordic country, among whom Jón Þor Birgisson and Kjartan Sveinsson of Sigur Rós and Gyða Valtysdottir, the cellist on the first two Múm albums, stand out.

The Californian artist's definitive union with Nordic atmospheres and musicians comes through clearly in the album's very "Icelandic" sound, which in some ways stands as a worthy successor to the masterpiece "( )" (still being written at the time), while in other respects it sketches a different intersection of tradition and electronics than the one captured by Múm on "Summer Make Good".

Yet there is nothing reductive about these references and inevitable stylistic affinities, since In A Safe Place actually represents the fully realized, mature outcome of the path LaValle embarked on with The Album Leaf — a path aimed at far more than simply pursuing a liquid, enveloping sound, one that moved on from guitars toward a measured approach to electronics. The album's ten tracks arrive at a partial conclusion of this search, blended and enriched by the constant presence of the romanticism that runs through the whole work as its guiding thread. The conclusions one can draw from the record as a whole are not univocal, though, leaving a range of options open — partly divergent, yet always coherent with one another. Thus, while in some tracks ("The Outer Banks" and "Another Day") the electronic component dominates, in others ("Thule" and "TwentyTwoFourteen") the sound relies much more on LaValle's guitars and piano, ultimately much closer to what The Album Leaf had produced up to that point; in still others ("Moss Mountain Town" and "Over The Pond", on which Jónsi himself provides vocals) the influence of Sigur Rós is pronounced, though rendered less overt by the contamination of other elements embodied by the electronics and airy arrangements.

What is most surprising about In A Safe Place is precisely its ability to offer, without apparent contradiction, a range of different sonic solutions — including two genuine ballads ("On Your Way" and "Eastern Glow") — in a thoroughly distinctive singer-songwriter style, made all the more so by the unmistakable voice of the album's other illustrious guest, namely Pall A. Jenkins.

The human and artistic experience lived through in Iceland must have left a deep mark on LaValle, filling with pathos and warm substance what had previously been expressed as a faint, intermittent warmth, so much so that even after his return to San Diego his inspiration kept intact the images, the atmosphere and the suggestions of the far North. Thus, Into The Blue Again ends up representing the natural continuation of the previous work — without exceptional guests or collaborators, yet able to carry forward its liquid sounds, muffled atmospheres and frequent harmonic openings.

In the ten tracks that make up the record, in fact, most of the elements that marked In A Safe Place recur, yet not merely reproduced in their formal aspects — rather, absorbed and internalized by LaValle to the point of forming the truest, most personal essence of an artistic expression that seems to have found its definitive consecration precisely in hushed notes, electronic pulses and gusts of synth.

Somewhat different from the enchanting gem that preceded it, Into The Blue Again shows a further melodic refinement, reflected especially in the three fully-fledged songs, in which LaValle abandons his reluctance to sing, crowning the glowing, vaporous atmospheres of "Wherever I Go" with an effective pop touch and, above all, rounding out the highly effective "Always For You" with firmer electronic rhythms.

The album does not live on songs alone; indeed, LaValle's melodies and vocals represent more of a natural point of arrival, essential for giving communicative substance to the serene dreaminess that flows over soft lines drawn by the keyboards or over enveloping reverbs rippled by faint electronic lines.

Too close to the record that preceded it — both in terms of timing and style — to avoid the burdensome comparison, Into The Blue Again is nonetheless not an album to be dismissed with the hasty label of an appendix devoid of significant novelty; and although it does not fully match the inspiration of its predecessor in every respect, the growth in songwriting, a certain recurring rhythmic uplift, and the nocturnal Nordic romanticism that comes through in the string arrangements and piano are all sufficient grounds to give an independent identity to a record that marks a further evolutionary stage in LaValle's artistic vision. If In A Safe Place could be seen as an extemporaneous episode in his discography, Into The Blue Again shows how, after much artistic wandering, the Californian artist has found his ideal dimension, now definitively devoted to elusive settings that bring together post-rock lineage, electronics, romanticism and a pop-tronic flair in a strongly distinctive synthesis that is, once again, remarkably lucid.

After a full four years of "writer's block", coinciding with the tenth anniversary of his artistic project, LaValle continues not to look back, but inward, questioning his very approach to music by transforming The Album Leaf into a genuine band.

A Chorus Of Storytellers bears his stylistic signature intact, this time supported by a choral dimension never so pronounced before. Together with collaborators such as bassist Luis Hermosillo — his old bandmate in Tristeza — multi-instrumentalist Matthew Resovich and drummer Timothy Reece, on his fifth album LaValle strikes a fine balance between the electronic side and the more "organic" side of his airy compositions, underpinned by rich arrangements.

Alongside the greater instrumental complexity, A Chorus Of Storytellers shows heightened attention to songwriting, now distilled into four songs with well-defined contours, as well as a more pronounced rhythmic presence that, especially in the first half of the album, insists with a myriad of beats, crackles and field recordings over electronic backdrops that wrap around orchestral embraces and continuous harmonic surges. On tracks such as "Blank Pages" and "Within Dreams" the Nordic allure of the In A Safe Place era resounds, but, far from simply replicating formulas already thoroughly explored, LaValle instead elevates it into an element around which to shape the playful, sunlit ripples of "Stand Still" and the liquid melodic dreaminess of the well-judged songs "There Is A Wind" and "Falling From The Sun".

Once past the album's halfway point, the cards are reshuffled: the electronic pulse recedes, ceding the stage to sonic explorations that, across just a handful of tracks, range from the sinuous ambient and orchestral drifts of "Summer Fog" and "Until The Last" (Sigur Rós-like in attitude more than in sound) to hints of an intricate, martial percussiveness, soon smoothed over by the rounded tones of "We Are" and the sweet melody of "Almost There" — perhaps the track that best captures, in both melodic and lyrical terms, Jimmy LaValle's new, serene artistic dimension.

A Chorus Of Storytellers thus completes The Album Leaf's transition from monologue to choral representation, in a discourse that unfolds in harmony without ever giving up on painting landscapes that are now, more than ever, limpid and dreamlike — testimony to a balance achieved and to a human and artistic awareness that, as is usual for LaValle, is certainly no synonym for expressive flatness.

Starting in 2012, LaValle embarked on a prolific career as a film composer, a pursuit that would prove an opportunity to expand the nuances of his sonic universe and fully develop the cinematic dimension that had always been latent in his music. His first experience came with Torey's Distraction – the debut documentary by Texan filmmaker Tisha Blood – which saw the American musician employ sparse acoustic arrangements and minimal electronic modulations to shape a delicate melodic flow steeped in the luminous enchantment especially characteristic of his early work.

The following year came Simon Christen's short film Adrift, for which the Album Leaf moniker returned to the path charted by A Safe Place, and he subsequently scored, under his own name, the documentary Before You Know It and the horror/romance film Spring, which featured new, particularly atmospheric dark-ambient structures.

This run of soundtrack work was interrupted in 2013 by a collaborative album with Mark Kozelek, an unpredictable pairing on paper that yielded partially fascinating results. Perils From The Sea – strongly championed by the former Red House Painters frontman and released on his own Caldo Verde label – attempts to merge Kozelek's increasingly spare, intimate songwriting as the Sun Kil Moon frontman with LaValle's dreamy electronics, converging into a subdued narrative stream built on synthetic backdrops laced with deep pulsations. Despite the San Diego musician's skillful ambient-pop craftsmanship and Kozelek's intense performances elevating the sharp songwriting, the fusion of the two distinct visions, while never forced, doesn't fully come together, resulting in a hybrid whose component parts remain all too recognizable. There are memorable passages nonetheless, and songs like "You Missed My Heart", "Caroline" and the poignant "Somehow The Wonder Of Life Prevails" deliver deep emotion, though they don't quite justify the album's nearly eighty-minute runtime.

Another studio album from The Album Leaf wouldn't arrive until 2016, with the release of Between Waves. The record firmly establishes the project's new choral dimension and revisits its formula while partly broadening its vocabulary. Overall the sound is more structured, with pronounced rhythms ("False Down", "Lost In The Fog") that, on the sung tracks, explore trip-hop horizons tinged with dreamy shades ("New Soul", "Between Waves"). Despite the intent to introduce new elements into an established compositional practice, the album stands out above all for the (excessive?) polish of its production, coming across as overly calculated and unwilling to venture down unexplored paths.

It is instead as a film composer that LaValle proves increasingly prolific, scoring in subsequent years the soundtracks for The Endless, Synchronic and Something in the Dirt – all directed by the duo Justin Benson/Aaron Moorhead –, as well as 3022 and the documentaries Ovarian Psycos and Artist And Mother.

To mark the twentieth anniversary of One Day I'll Be On Time, 2021 saw the release of One Day XX, a project paying tribute to that pivotal turning point by reworking it in collaboration with longtime collaborator James McAlister and the live band. What the album offers is a fresh perspective on the tracks, one that respects their melodic structure while reshaping the arrangements and employing instrumentation different from the original. Synths replace guitar on "Gust Of…", the impressionist elegy of "Hang Over" is transformed into a tremolo-laden flow streaked with dissonant flourishes, and the electronic dance of "Vermillion" takes on the myriad colors injected by the ensemble in its live rendition. What emerges is proof of how the intervening years have honed those excellent foundations into a mature, self-aware vision and sound.

Seven years after Between Waves comes a new album of original material instead. Future Falling gathers and refines only a small portion of the material accumulated over that span and brings The Album Leaf back to a solo dimension, albeit one amply supported by numerous outside contributions. It's above all the working methods that have changed, with contributions activated remotely before being reshaped and layered privately in the studio. From this process of building and polishing emerges a flow marked by the coexistence of different approaches, highlighting all the experience accrued over more than twenty years. Cinematic textures, Nordic reflections, rhythmic exploration, and that overpowering emotional dimension that has been the hallmark of his most successful work are the components of the luminous electronics underpinning the ten distilled tracks.

Nestled between two deeply dynamic synthetic progressions, not without a creeping undercurrent of unease, are pulsing explorations marked by sinuous synth lines ("Dust Collects"), echoes of the Icelandic atmospheres of In A Safe Place stripped of the nods to Múm and Sigur Rós ("Breath"), and measured downtempo drifts ("Give In"). It's all held together by a compositional refinement honed through his soundtrack work and a constant balance between organic and digital elements. As usual, fully realized song forms emerge from the instrumental substrate, this time not performed by LaValle himself but entrusted to two exceptional vocalists, Kimbra and Bat For Lashes. "Afterglow" is bittersweet pop built around the New Zealand singer-songwriter's voice, while "Near" sketches an indietronic landscape with dreamy shades in which Natasha Khan's enchanting vocals integrate perfectly.

The wait has once again been a long one, but unlike Between Waves, this new work impresses with a carefully considered construction capable of embracing experimentation without sacrificing the enveloping warmth that has made The Album Leaf's sound unique.

After the long hiatus that brought the Album Leaf name back to recorded output, Jimmy LaValle attempts to give continuity to this chapter of his musical career, releasing a follow-up just two years after Future Falling.

Rotations, like its predecessor, finds the San Diego musician working in complete solitude, offering a sequence of tracks united, by his own admission, simply by the desire to explore compositional processes, with no conceptual superstructure guiding their development. It's a clear-cut choice from which one might expect a multifaceted, at least partly disorienting journey, a path of experimentation aimed at broadening an already well-established creative vocabulary. The result moves in an entirely different direction, offering an ambient-leaning collection inclined to dissect the most rarefied side of the electronic vocabulary LaValle has honed. Song form is set aside entirely, with no vocal element present across the ten tracks, and only "Carousel" features an outside contribution, from TJ Dumser aka Six Missing.

These are above all cinematic synthetic flows, most striking when marked by pronounced pulsations ("Rhythm Resolve", "Rotations") or when projecting toward landscapes that once again recall the Icelandic atmospheres of "In A Safe Place", now fully freed from echoes of Múm and Sigur Rós ("Celestial Spin"). What's missing above all are the indietronic and downtempo intrusions capable of giving the record breadth, which keeps it from being an album that, while certainly well-defined in its enveloping, emotionally charged sound, feels all too uniform in tone.

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