THE ALBUM LEAF - A Body Of Voices

With the minor misstep of “Rotations” now behind him, Jimmy LaValle picks up some of the threads from the convincing “Future Falling” to carry on his sonic journey under the name The Album Leaf. Specifically, what gets carried forward from the album that marked his return after a long hiatus are the blatant pop streak running through some of its choices and the collaborative attitude. And whereas in that case it was just two tracks entrusted to the voices of Kimbra and Bat For Lashes, here essentially the whole record is built around sharing the spotlight.

On “A Body Of Voices”, LaValle thus becomes the architect of a sequence of songs conceived to be handed over to musicians he admires and from whom he's confident he can draw a constructive contribution. As was already the case on its entirely instrumental predecessor, there's no further overarching structure tying the tracks together, but here it's the vocal element that takes centre stage. Cohesion rests entirely on the recognisability of the San Diego musician's stylistic signature, the true guiding thread of a sequence of songs that shapes the record in search of a broader range of solutions.

A largely successful operation, with Twin Shadow's bass and synth contributions on “Cry When I'm Nervous” and the pulsing “True Love, Don't Be Afraid”, polished off with Stephen McBean of Black Mountain, standing out as the best intersections. Equally effective is the pairing with Motherboard's deep voice on the downtempo “Allow Yourself”, with Aisha Badru's voice on the dreamy horizon of “Fight or Flight”, and with Nicole Miglis on “Turns”.

These are functional combinations that nonetheless don't mark any particular departure from a practice which, by the author's own admission, is all too steeped in familiar patterns that are hard to break away from. The flashes of brilliance of “In A Safe Place” and the clarity of “Into The Blue Again” are missing, and yet “A Body Of Voices” has the merit of justifying the longevity of a project that is anything but exhausted, one still constantly searching for a valid way to redefine itself.

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23/10/2026