Into the Blue Again [Import]

The Album Leaf | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Import
• Label: Universal
• ASIN: B000GPI2WC
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #475,641 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

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A more intense and realized record.. with lusher strings and vocal harmonies..taking sonic peregrinations that suggest he's hit the mere beginning of a damn impressive creative side. - (Steven Leckart)

On his fourth album, (LaValle) gently eases you into his mostly instrumental world, where shimmering keyboards float around sweeping strings and understated beats. - (Jason Gross)

...its gentle beats and ambient textures are gorgeous enough to stand on their own. - (Austin L. Ray) --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Product Description

Jimmy LaValle's varied experience includes stints with Tristeza, The Locust, GoGoGo Airheart, The Blackheart Procession, and Sigur Ros. "Into The Blue Again" sees LaValle handling the bulk of the vocal and instrumental duties. After tracking, he took the concentric billows of feathered keyboards, filmy strings, and chiseled drums to Iceland for three weeks of mixing to tape to maintain Brian Eno-informed translucence. Having shared so much time and space with others on the road, LaValle proves, with this personally charged release, that The Album Leaf resonates most profoundly when he goes it alone. --This text refers to an alternate Audio CD edition.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great album, September 19, 2006

By 

William R. Elenbark (Monmouth Junction, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Into the Blue Again (Audio CD)

The new Album Leaf album Into the Blue Again was released last week to relatively little fanfare with an advance track that I liked but didn't love, so it took me over a week to actually purchase the new CD. I'm not sure why. I've loved each of their previous releases, from the completely wordless but beautiful One Day I'll Be on Time to the more filled-out arrangements (and Sigur Ros influence) of In a Safe Place. And this collection does not disappoint. The Album Leaf started as a side project to Jimmy LaValle's Tristeza, which is more electronic based, but LaValle has really expanded his sound into an ambient masterwork, somewhat similar to Sigur Ros, and approximating some of the lighter sounding tracks of Mogwai.

LaValle does some more singing on this new album, and while I thought the vocal tracks on In a Safe Place were the highlights, creating a welcome change of pace to the same-ness that plagued One Day I'll Be on Time, the sung songs are unfortunately the weak points of this album. But those minor down points are more than made up for on the rest of the album, which features some of the most beautifully melodic tracks I've heard this year. Opener "The Light" kicks this off with understated brilliance and is followed by the aforementioned "Always for You", a good but not great song. Then "Shine" hits you and it takes a while to recover. Just an almost perfect song as LaValle confidently applies his craft, creating shimmering beauty out of several instruments that blend together into a seamless form. According to the liner notes, "Shine" uses violins, Rhodes piano, keyboards, synthesizers, bass guitar, glockenspiel, drums, and drum programming, all but the violin performed by LaValle himself. How he creates such wonderful music by basically programming a machine is amazing to me.

The rest of the album includes other highlights, almost equally as wonderful, including instrumental tracks "Red-Eye" and "Into the Sea". Of the ten songs, LaValle sings (or mostly sing-speaks) on three of them and the other seven are all just about perfectly rendered. Closing track "Broken Arrow" brings back memories of older Album Leaf tracks, with the beeps and bits emerging amongst the minor-key piano strumming. That works well too. A great, great album. Well done, Mr. Lavalle.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Album Leaf - Into The Blue Again, September 9, 2011

By 

scoundrel - See all my reviews

This review is from: Into the Blue Again (Audio CD)

The Album Leaf's post-rock/downtempo mood continues with INTO THE BLUE AGAIN, as "The Light" drifts calmly on soft layers of sound. But "Always for You" brings in the drums and the vocals, and tracks like "Shine" remind you that the Album Leaf is, at heart, a rock band, despite the electronic underpinnings. But that's OK! If it makes "Red-Eye" seem like a melancholy stroll through an empty city street with its stuttering rhythm and long strings, that's OK! Really, this is an album that could have appeared on Morr Music. "See in You" has that combination of electronic and acoustic guitar that seems all the rage, but does it well; "Into the Sea" swells with orchestral beauty; the gentle piano that starts "Wishful Thinking." To top it off, "Broken Arrow" brings back those weepy strings, and the whole rock/techno dichotomy gets destroyed. But that's OK.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Mystical Quality, June 23, 2007

By 

Christopher Allison - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Into the Blue Again (Audio CD)

In William James' classic The Varieties of Religious Experiences, buried deep in the 400 page work is a passing comment concerning music's appeal to one's mystical sensibility. Into the Blue Again is a great album that captures nearly flawlessly that mystical quality that is so attractive to some people. What I enjoy about it the most is that it captures this quality without being barbaric, eccentric, or abrasive. Into the Blue Again is peaceful and transcendent while at the same time powerful, both familiar and new at the same time.