Sometimes you’d be better off just scanning a sleeve’s small print than reading the album review. And appropriately enough this third record (though it is officially an introduction for the UK) from San Diego’s The Album Leaf is a prime case in point. Recorded amid the famously expansive, volcanic tundra of Iceland? Collaborations with members of Sigur Rós and Múm? Yes, paints a vivid, pretty picture, all icy blues and subtle fiery tones, doesn’t it. We do though implore that you read on nonetheless. We can, you see, report that he (for lone soul Jimmy Lavelle – no, not that one – is the sonic architect here) has stayed faithful to the impressions he encourages whilst crafting a gentle yet intense work that is quite brilliantly all his own.
Immediately sharing qualities with Sigur Rós, even before he conducts their string section and binds Jon Thor Birgisson to the helm as a talisman, ‘Window’ sounds like the dawn of time, or a new aeon beginning to thaw. Like molecules dispersing in a refrigerated petri dish, gradually building complex constructs with the most fragile of base elements. If Múm were a stalactite and Sigur Rós a stalagmite from the same frosty cavern, The Album Leaf would inhabit the space between.
By the time ‘The Outer Banks’ arrives you’ve already been absorbed into the fabric of the record. That track’s sparse break-beats and those of ‘Another Day’ evoke the moody electro-psychedelia of Múm, and the more aloof atmospherics of ‘Twentytwofourteen’, ‘Moss Mountain Town’ and ‘Over The Pond’ their other partner, especially given the latter’s extra-terrestrial pitched vocal. But the record’s real value is that it can hold equal handfuls of both and forge off independently, beating with positivity. The result – a much bolder, brighter direction than you’d expect from either, one capable of framing and stepping inside a moment. And one that sounds like the Postal Service on the moon on standout track ‘Thule’. One small step? This record’s chock full of them.