A Powerful Listening Experience

After rising from humble beginnings as solo project for extremely talented multi-instrumentalist Jimmy LaValle, The Album Leaf has become a major innovator in both post-rock and electronics music scenes. The Album Leaf released a reissue of its 1999 debut album, An Orchestrated Rise to Fall, on December 8^th and the project still holds to this day the same innovative feel that made it such an awesome album previously. Today, as a fully fledged live band, The Album Leaf continues to stand out as a musical known for its cutting-edge approach to music.

The Album Leaf has been recognized as an out-of-the-box style musician, and takes pride in going against what is considered conventional. As a solo artist, Jimmy LaValle has contributed his talents to independent film productions, such as Before You Know It and Spring. In recent years, The Album Leaf has focused more on their work in the film industry, but this reissue makes a strong statement in terms of reinvigorating buzz surrounding their work in 2017.

An Orchestrated Rise to Fall largely showcases The Album Leaf’s talent in both post-rock and ambient genres. However, it also serves as an excellent demonstration of the bands talent in creating film scores. The music on An Orchestrated Rise to Fall was not simply meant to be listened to —  it was meant to be experienced. The songs are predominantly soft, and feature drawn out low tempo melodies, but they also create a meditative listening experience that very few albums can.

The songs at times seem to blend together, which typically would be considered a negative aspect for an album; however, on this album the blending functions as one way to tell a story. Since the album does not have any lyrics, the story that the music could tell is left up to the listeners. The music invokes imaginative thought and creates a feeling of something epic happening. The “something” is left to the listeners but the heightened emotions are carefully curated by The Album Leaf. The samples that are used intermittently through out the album add to this effect. They create a kind of backstory feel like something is going behind the music that is present on the album.

The true standout track on the album is “A Short Story 2” which is over fourteen minutes long, but works as a climax would in a film. The song also blends the ambient and post-rock influences together beautifully creating an epic peak. Listeners can feel this slow drawn out build up to the epic climax in the song which is well worth the wait, and the near fifteen-minute wait goes by rather quickly.

Overall this album is a true gem and makes a great showcase of The Album Leaf’s talent as a musician. The effect that is achieved on An Orchestrated Rise to Fall is something that all music should always do, but often does not. The Album Leaf also managed to create this listening experience with no lyrics, just sheer musical talent that he manages to carry throughout the entirety of the project. Only a few musical acts can create an experience like such as this.