Much as environments have been transformed into landscapes, so too has the music emanating from The Album Leaf lapsed into parody. While Jimmy Lavalle’ earlier records emphasized subtle changes from minor to major keys, intricate percussion and punchy guitar lines that would slowly inflate a piano’ drifting harmony, the sight of these pieces seems dazed by the fey ambient meditations which ensnared Lavalle’ attention during the making of his previous album, In A Safe Place. In place of such dynamic combinations, a Rhodes piano writhes snakelike in a lukewarm pool of ambiance while sweeping synth-string themes add glistening accents. On most tracks, measured beats try to inject a dose of harmonic and rhythmic complexity, but with little development or variety they come to feel ornamental, their churning energy gradually dissipating into the atmosphere like a cheap perfume.
At the same time, Into The Blue Again is the most stylistically cohesive of Lavalle’ efforts. Lavalle takes his overarching aesthetic beyond a critical threshold, however, to a place where the wintry ebb and flow of these compositions is not wound into an affectingly singular statement, but where it produces a dull general equivalence. On three pieces Lavalle also adds his gravely voice to the proceedings. His voice fits square in the indie rock tradition, usually spoke/sung, slightly nasal, and not overly becoming. Although the addition of his voice gives these synth-heavy works something to play with, they also further mar the proceedings with banal lines such as ¨Before the ocean I pray/And I said your name/In the air I flew/Through the clouds I fall/And all the things I tried to say were never easy to explain/They were always meant for you¨. With numerous other compositions such as ¨Everywhere I Go¨, songs are simply an uninterrupted march towards a swirling mayhem of clattery beats, shifting textures of distended piano and halos of reverb. Perhaps forgivable on the first offense, that each track settles into this pattern comes to remind one that these are but ambient compositions trying to act like ambient compositions.
Max Schaefer
