Send "The Album Leaf " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Bbc |
 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 – 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 Jón Birgisson of Sigur Rós 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....full text |
| Musicomh |
| The Album Leaf. A former guitarist with post-rockers Tristeza, he's now a fully fledged law-unto-himself, producing, engineering, mixing and playing all manner of instruments on the four LPs under The Album Leaf monicker to date. He is, however, not the self-indulgent knob-twiddling type, nor a Calvin Harris-esque chart-bothering hit machine: instead, LaValle is a long-term Sigur Rós co-conspirator and, having spent time with the Icelanders both on the road and in the studio, has been able to nurture The Album Leaf's sound from lo-fi to epic. Indeed, A Chorus Of Storytellers was recorded in Seattle but remixed in Iceland by Birgir Jón Birgisson, and appears to benefit accordingly: here is that elusive melancholy American dramas exploit so well - not least The OC, which has featured no less than six Album Leaf tracks over the seasons....full text |
| Prefixmag |
| You can't do it all yourself. It's a true hallmark of personal growth and knowledge that Jimmy LaValle, a.k.a. the Album Leaf, seems to have taken to heart since 2006's Into the Blue Again. In his personal life, LaValle tied the knot in 2008 and married his high school sweetheart (which one can only guess the sweet and restrained “Tied Knots,” on his fifth release, A Chorus of Storytellers, nods to). Then, in early 2009, for the first time as the Album Leaf, LaValle recorded with a full band. He had previously -- almost always -- provided the studio instrumentation himself. Mixed in Reykjavik by Sigur Ros's engineer Birgir Jon Birgisson, Storytellers is all the better for LaValle's new approach, pulling together a fuller, more concentrated sound. It seems taking himself halfway out of the picture has allowed LaValle to get a better look at it, and for this reason the 11-track album gives the impression that creating song identity was a collaborative process. With an Icelandic horn section, his entire touring band and some symphony players, Storytellers still sounds like an Album Leaf record, with distinguishing slower, sweeping moments and melancholic structures. But songs like “Until the Last” fluidly blends lush, live string elements with light-handed beats in a way that LaValle could not achieve before (in contrast to, say, the halting and hesitant tones of 2001's One Day I'll Be on Time). In the same way, where past releases were overly meditative and somber, Storytellers moves at a steady pace and finds balance in the talent assembled to make it. Closer “We Are” finishes on the up-tempo, with lyrics mirroring the process: “We all are pushing and pulling/ We are breaking the distance/ If there's still some time in our thoughts/ We walk away and back again.”...full text |
The Album Leaf lyrics
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