Think that performing acoustically for the first time, releasing a record, and starting a tour with a free show in a Berkeley art museum accompanied by a string quartet is a bit ambitious? Well, you certainly haven’t met the Album Leaf. As main composer, keyboardist, and vocalist Jimmy LaValle admitted, his day started at 12:01 when he checked to make sure that the band’s latest release, A Chorus of Storytellers, had been posted on Itunes. Within a day’s span, the mastermind behind the Album Leaf would soon be applauding himself for his first acoustic radio performance, and a well-received artistic and musical experience enjoyed by a museum full of UC Berkeley students.
The concept of the show revolved around the unveiling of Thom Faulders’ BAMscape, an orange furniture-like sculpture. Berkeley students were invited to lounge on the natural peaks of the sculpture while watching an hour-and-a-half long performance from the Album Leaf. If ever there was a perfect setting for the lush ambient electronics of the San Diego band, this was it. As the ambition shows, though, this wasn’t going to be a typical Album Leaf performance, but with the addition of a new light show, visuals, a trumpet player, and a string quartet, would be what LaValle referred to as “epic Leaf.”
After shoeless students had jammed into the various crevices of Faulders’ sculpture, the lights went completely dark except for the Christmas style lighting that adorned the Album Leaf’s armada of keyboards and more standard collection of guitars and violins. The band opened with the first five tracks of A Chorus of Storytellers, sticking true to the unspoken agreement among bands to play all new material on the day of a CD release. Although the songs may have been to casual fans or even to those who had just recently picked up the record, the Album Leaf made the experience special, clearly showing that the songs placement at the beginning of the record marked an important starting point for the band. After all, Storytellers was the first record that the Album Leaf had recorded as a full band. Although LaValle composed all of the pieces, much as he had done in his San Diego bedroom in 1999 when the former Tristeza and Black Heart Procession guitarist decided to create the Album Leaf, each of the four core members had evolved his own part in the studio. The cohesion showed, and compared to their visit to San Francisco’s Bottom of the Hill last year, LaValle and company seemed to be a tighter group. As guitarist Drew Andrews had said earlier in the day, instead of just playing with LaValle, each member had to “think outside of the box and think outside of our playing abilities to make a cohesive record.” The comprehensive story created in the first few songs from A Chorus of Storytellers showed that they largely succeeded in this endeavor.
As the show went on, the Album Leaf indulged fans with many of the more popular tracks that the band had become known for in the ten-plus years of its existence. Although they never reached back into their catalogue further than 2004’s In a Safe Place, the set was well-rounded in its combinations of the darker, melancholic earlier tracks like “The Outer Banks” and more orchestral, uplifting songs from A Chorus of Storytellers. LaValle also approached the microphone much more often than in last year’s performances, playing every track with vocals from A Chorus of Storytellers, as well as Album Leaf live standards “Wherever I Go” and “Always for You.”
From start to finish, the show was not just a performance, but was rather a staged experience. Visual storylines were projected on the concrete wall behind the band, and the lighting mounted on the band’s equipment followed the rises and falls of the music perfectly, leaving audience members in a glow of light blue or yellow, the only light disrupting the complete darkness that surrounded the rest of the museum performance area. While concerts may be described as successful or lacking based on the band’s musical output, the Album Leaf took music quality as a given, and instead immersed the audience in the ambient setting that they had crafted. No longer just listeners, audience members were like children, taking off their shoes to play on an orange statue and go wherever the Album Leaf would take them. When the show was over, a prophetic statement from LaValle earlier that afternoon made much more sense. “It’s only going to get better from here,” said LaValle after the acoustic performance with a sly smile of knowledge that he had something special up his sleeve. The art museum show confirmed that the bandleader was right.
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- The Album Leaf - "A Chorus of Storytellers" - February 11th, 2010
