Following the projects with Frail and Pennikurvers, we are proud to announce the previously unreleased The Album Leaf's Lines In A Leaf as our third record of the Hand Screened editions series. This series has been a cool way for us to tap into our DIY roots and the DIY nature of the recordings featured. Hand-screened locally here in Chicago and assembled right here in our office.
Between the demise of screamo first-wavers Swing Kids and the rise of post-rock mainstays Tristeza, Jimmy LaValle could be found tinkering in his bedroom four track studio at 2145 E St. in San Diego. Six lo-fi soundscapes emerged from hundreds of hours of jamming alone in his headphones, eventually making their way via demo cassette to Tiger Style co-founder Mike Treff in 1998.
"I had known Jimmy from hardcore—Locust, Crimson Curse, Swing Kids, and Guyver-One were absolutely some of my favorite bands," Treff said. "When I heard these recordings I was floored. The compositions, the range, the intensity achieved without distortion or extreme volume was just mind blowing. The Album Leaf's music synthesized a love of lo-fi, field recordings, and the instrumental stuff coming out of Chicago and Louisville, but he was doing it with a directness that seemed to come from hardcore."
The Album Leaf's An Orchestrated Rise To Fall debuted the following year and this tape became buried in the many moves of a storied career. We unearthed and rediscovered as part of our recent partnership with NYC's Tiger Style Records last year and it totally blew us away. We've now restored and assembled here for the first time The Album Leaf's earliest sketches. Half a dozen cinematic meditations born from late night longing and early adulthood blues. Lines In A Leaf is housed in a two-tone, hand-screened chipboard jacket, with informational insert, available in a limited edition of 500 on black-vinyl only available at numerogroup.com.
LISTEN NOW: 2 of the unreleased tracks including Hill Of Gold and Writing In The Sand are available now for streaming here.
Pre-order: The records have been fully assembled and orders will begin shipping in early June.
Track List
- 01 2145 E St.
- 02 Hill of Gold
- 03 Fire to Fire
- 04 Writing in the Sand
- 05 Knots in a String of Beads
- 06 A Crumpled Piece of Paper, Slowly Unfolding
