The Album Leaf

San Diego, United States

The Album Leaf is the solo project of Jimmy LaValle, a San Diego-based songwriter who began recording solo material one year after forming the post-rock band Tristeza. Inspired by a number of genres — classical, jazz and post-rock among them — LaValle constructed his own songs in a similarly eclectic manner, using everything from ambient noise to field recordings to radio transmissions. An Orchestrated Rise to Fall introduced the resulting sound in 1999. An EP, In an Off White Room, preceded his second full-length album, One Day I’ll Be on Time, released by Tiger Style in March 2001.

The Album Leaf’s profile blossomed as a result of those recordings, and LaValle found himself opening for Sigur Rós on their first American tour that autumn. By the time he began recording his third album he had also secured the band’s studios in Iceland, along with the participation of several of its members. The resulting album, In a Safe Place, appeared on Sub Pop in June 2004.

The Seal Beach EP, originally issued in Spain in 2003, appeared in the United States in early 2005, and the next album, Into the Blue Again, followed in September 2006. The Album Leaf toured sporadically for the rest of the decade, performing on several continents and opening for Devendra Banhart at the Hollywood Bowl in 2008. Two years later LaValle returned with his fifth full-length album, A Chorus of Storytellers.