“Over a decade in the making, the Album Leaf is just now hitting its stride.” —Prefix

“… gently eases you into his mostly instrumental world, where shimmering keyboards float around sweeping strings and understated beats.” —Spin

“…twinkling poptronica that could be arguably cast aside as new age if it weren't cut with just enough post-rock and IDM textures.” —Pitchfork

“Over a decade in the making, the Album Leaf is just now hitting its stride.” —Prefix

There are roads we all must travel to get where we need to be.

Okay, right, that sounds utterly trite and cliché, but to paraphrase Lloyd Cole, it’s a cliché because it’s true. In the case of music, almost all artists start out with a roadmap. A nice, tidy conceptualization of what they want their message to be, what they hope to accomplish and, more pressingly, what they want people to hear in the songs.

It’s never been so systematic and apple-pie for The Album Leaf. Originally conceived and, for the most part, exectued by one Jimmy LaValle, the project has never had a fatalist approach even over the course of 12 years, hundreds of songs, dozens of tours, several sojourns to Iceland and more mood-setting appearances on The O.C. and C.S.I. ­­­than anyone cares to remember. Whether it took the form of a man crafting entire soundscapes in a room or as five or so musicians onstage, there’s never been any rules to what The Album Leaf could be and, in the case of Forward/Return, what it can or continue to sound like.

What you are about to listen to (well, hopefully you are) isn’t the sound of a straight line or even as the crow flies. It’s the sound of forks in the road and the ones less traveled by. LaValle’s own journey has taken him up and down California and back again over the last few years, and the songs on Forward/Return revolve loosely around that feeling of starting over (over and over again). The beauty of returning home again. The pensiveness that comes with finding a new one.

Recorded and produced in Lavalle’s new home studio in Los Angeles, the EP includes both new contributors as well as some familiar hands. It also continues in the spirit of the last Album Leaf LP (2010’s A Chorus of Storytellers) in that the songs were performed by a full band and not just by LaValle himself. But the similarties end there. Listeners can look at most EPs in one of two ways: As an extentsion of what came before (read: leftovers from the previous full-length) or as an exercise in trying something new. The beginning of a new chapter, a testing of creative invigoration or just dipping one’s proverbial toe into new imaginative waters.

The first Album Leaf record to be self-released in quite some time, Forward/Return has the distinction of being both a return to form as well as the beginning of something altogether novel. As BBC Music remarked of the last Album Leaf release, “There is, in it’s overall serene, melancholic sweep, a sense of a long journey undertaken, whose good outcome is assured and yet which is tinged throughout with the vague sadness that accompanies any such oddysey—the loss of that which is left behind, as well as the knowledge that arrival will bring the process of travelling to an end.”

For The Album Leaf, the end of that journey has never been predetermined. All musicians reache an epoch and for LaValle and his mates, the paths they’ve created in the past aren’t meant to be retreaded. Forward/Return is that arrival as well as the first step forward on a new path. As LaValle so delicately serenades on “Under The Night,” “We’re starting over… We’re starting over again.”

"Best known as the stick-wielding hurricane behind L.A. greats Sabrosa Purr, and Big Black Delta, Mahsa Zargaran has been quietly crafting her own beautifully dark and melodic tunes that are finally seeing the light of day under the pseudonym Omniflux.
The Iranian born musical prodigy wrote, recorded and produced all her own tracks – eerily dark and complex soundscapes reminiscent of bands like Ba
ts For Lashes, Portishead and even composer Clint Mansell. An admirable accomplishment for any musician, but what’s even more impressive is the fact that Zargaran had little to no exposure to any rock/pop music until moving to the States at age 15.

With the release of an online EP, and an artfully surreal new video, this “female force to be reckoned with” has been catching a rapidly growing buzz among L.A.-based tastemakers and bloggers with a sound that is truly innovative, unique and strikingly emotive.

Between marathon writing sessions, and her numerous other musical projects, Zargaran found time to take a quick break for a round of margaritas, apps and good conversation at The Sunset Strip’s newest cornerstone of Latin cuisine, Rosa Mexicano. Here’s what she had to say about Omniflux, women who really rock, playing piano and discovering American pop music." -The Sunset Strip music blog

Drew Andrews and Spectral Cities began in 2008 when Drew released his record, Only Mirrors, on Minty Fresh Records. Drew was a long time member of The Album Leaf for many years, and now brings his own unique form of 'dream folk' to light supporting his latest vinyl release, Goddamn, Yes I'm For Real. Backed by his band, Spectral Cities, Drew's live show is a textured blend of melodies and syncropated rhythms, synths, and chiming guitars.