In the time that’s elapsed since its last proper album, 2010’s A Chorus Of Storytellers, Jimmy LaValle’s the Album Leaf has popped up with a soundtrack release and a collab with Sun Kil Moon, but the entity’s (the new Between Waves is the first A. Leaf LP to be made as a band effort) exploration of all things ambient, electronic and organically understated when it comes to both instrumental endeavors and the application of the aforementioned to a very contemporary-sounding indie-pop is what prevails on Between Waves. The Album Leaf will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our review of Between Waves.
Dave Lebleu: Most recently, I have been juggling perhaps too many things all revolving around music or electronics. I have been working on a duo with longtime collaborator Sander Travisano of the Mercury Program, which is wrapping up a record, entirely recorded with clones of old microphones or cheap-market microphones that have been modified/upgraded. It’s sort of our “Steely Dan” so to speak, with regard to the vibe. Aside from that and some other solo endeavors wrapping up records, I have been also working on a sound installation. The piece involves a circuit that is built from a patch on my home-made synthesizer that I find myself using again and again to make soundscapes. The idea is to make each patch its own self-contained analog circuit and speaker, which is then arranged around a space based on the properties of the space. Each speaker/circuit is tuned independently and will play freely among the others.
