The Album Leaf
Into the Blue Again (Sub Pop)
By Caroline Evans
Published: September 25th, 2006 | 2:01pm
It would take a classically-trained multi-instrumentalist like Jimmy LaValle, whose work includes contributions to Tristeza and the Black Heart Procession, to take traditional melodies and harmonies and translate them into modern post-rock using electronic instruments like synthesizers and drum machines. Adopting the name of a Chopin piece, LaValle as the Album Leaf paints vast landscapes on his fourth, largely instrumental album, strings quietly cascading against chiseled loops and beats as each track flows into the next.
Into the Blue Again was written when LaValle holed himself up in his house in San Diego for six months after a year and a half straight of touring. Lyrics are as sparse as the music is rich, and betray a festering angst beneath the aesthetic beauty of the album. “Wherever I Go,” pleads “Wherever I go, your shadow follows me / I don’t want to see you leave,” over sparkling piano lines and classical progressions. “Writings on the Wall” begins as a minimalist piano piece and builds as cymbal beats and violin quickly fill in the gaps. “The writing on the wall will scream at us,” LaValle proclaims in his cracking drone before the song melts away into the minimalism of “Red-Eye”. So goes the album: beautiful songs arrive without our knowing, and just as we take notice, they slip away, into the blue again.
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