The Album Leaf - 'In A Safe Place' (Sub Pop)
3/5
By: Toby L
Sparse, very introspective, predominantly instrumental dabbling from The Album Leaf, aka Jimmy Lavelle. We admire the man; he upped roots from San Diego and positions in cult acts The Black Heart Procession and Tristeza and started releasing deeply entrancing mood-elevator music to underground acclaim in the late 90s.
Then, as seems obligatory with any noted rock imperial of modern times, he discovered Iceland.
Famed for its competitive prices and bulk-buying, the supermarket chain has become a huge hit on British shores since its opening in...
Oh, wait, the other one: the rock in the north of the world. The place where Americans hide military bases, women and men are - unfathomably - even more beautiful than the arch glacial serenity that surrounds them, and eating shark is as common an occurrence as a Friday night kebab. Little wonder Lavelle felt at home - from the humdrum of corporatism to a place that spawned Mum and Sigur Ros, it must have been some journey.
Well, we know it is. Here's the product. 'In A Safe Place', fittingly titled, his latest record is a beautiful piece of lounging warmth and seclusion, as desolate as the climes that surrounded him, and as hauntingly moving and minimal as the artists that co-created it. After listening beginning to end, you'll want to give the man a big hug.
'On Your Way' is the first immediate pick - a harmonically enriching and simplistic step of defiance into the unknown, while thought-pieces 'Window' and 'Twentytwofourteen' work as sombre collages of Matmos-harping, scattering electronica and comatose organs. By the time Sigur's Jon Thor begins singing, if you're not welling up, consider yourself clinically brain-dead, or, at the very least, emotionally retarded.
Slight and explorative, with 'In A Safe Place', The Album Leaf may lack guidance, but that makes tracing his steps that much more riveting.
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