If you're a fan of Kranky Records, Brian Eno, Sigur Ros, Mum and
beautifully-textural pop music in this vein, I highly recommend this show.
If you aren?t familiar with the Album Leaf?s music, be sure and check out
the video and mp3 links below.
quoted 1 line Decibel Festival & Neumo's proudly present:
>>>Decibel Festival & Neumo's proudly present:
Friday, April 15
Decibel and Neumo's Crystal Ball Reading presents:
ALBUM LEAF (Sub Pop)
ASPECTS OF PHYSICS (Imputor?)
PLASTIQ PHANTOM (Imputor?)
MANUOK (Album Leaf, Loud and Clear)
$10 adv/dos
Tickets at www.ticketwest.com or the bad juju lounge
Doors open @ 8pm
21+
Neumo?s
925 E. Pike Street
Seattle
THE ALBUM LEAF: Contact Music article
There are fewer locales more awe-inspiring than the frigid recesses of
Iceland's Western coast-a calm, glacial landscape at the polar opposite of
Jimmy LaValle's sunny, bustling California. Mosfellsbaer, Iceland and its
surrounding areas are host to one of the world's most secluded and
spotlighted meccas of creativity-few outsiders are invited in. LaValle, a
classically-trained and prolific pianist and musician whose ambitious
projects have involved San Diego's seminal ambient piano-rock outfit
Tristeza, noise punks The Locust, the beat-driven GoGoGo Airheart and the
gloomy, brooding epic-core group, Black Heart Procession, is one of the
lucky elite.
LaValle has released critically-acclaimed solo work as the Album Leaf (the
name comes from a Chopin piece) since 1999's mellow An Orchestrated Rise to
Fall (Linkwork). The releases that followed bubble with moody, contemplative
slow builds and Brian Eno-inspired compositional atmospherics. Structural
drum and bass undertones ground and direct dreamscapes that are painted with
varieties of organic instruments, making for sonic journeys that are as
whimsical as they are epic. During the realization of 2003's Lifetime or
More (Arena Rock) and Seal Beach (Acuarela) EPs, he prepared himself to take
on a new direction by founding his rich, textural documents on minimalist
beats. At the time of 2003's recording sessions, however, nothing could have
prepared LaValle for the experience he had overseas.
"It was a constant invite-they kept asking me," says LaValle, who first
befriended Icelandic sensations Sigur Ros on their first U.S. tour and
eventually began occasionally joining the group onstage several tours later.
Along with Sigur Ros, members of Amina (Sigur Ros' string section) beckoned
LaValle northward until he gave in. "There was this crazy rolling green
countryside with horses and ponds; it was really surreal. I felt like I was
on Mars," he chuckled warmly. Outside of the hustling, bustling confines of
his previous environment, LaValle realized that he was in a profoundly
different mental space-one that would deeply change the very nature of his
compositions: he was In a Safe Place.
"I've always felt that the music I make is perfect for that kind of
(Icelandic) setting," he explains. Inside Sundlaugin (the name of the studio
means "swimming pool" in Icelandic) and with the help of his hosts,
including members of Sigur Ros, Maria Huld Markan of Amina, Pall Jenkins of
the Black Heart Procession, and Gyda Valtysdottir (Cellist, Formerly of Mum)
LaValle was able to craft an album that ventures into new, at times
beat-intensive, territory. Chillingly delicate and more pop-based than ever
before, In a Safe Place masterfully negotiates the spaces between minimal
electronic music and melancholy instrumental neo-rock. The inclusion of
vocals from The Black Heart Procession's Pall Jenkins, Sigur Ros' Jon Thor
Birgisson, and LaValle himself is one of the striking results from this
newly collaborative process. "If I wasn't in that environment, I sure
wouldn't have sung," he marvels. We're glad he did, and you will be, too.
MP3 file:
http://subpop.dev.slam.cc/downloads...the_Pond284.mp3
Quicktime video:
http://subpop.dev.slam.cc/downloads...Your_Way272.mov
[DECIBEL LOVES YOU]
www.dbfestival.com
---------------------------------------------------------------------
To unsubscribe, e-mail: idm-unsubscribe@hyperreal.org
For additional commands, e-mail: idm-help@hyperreal.org