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Library Music: Volume One

by The Leaf Library

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    double black vinyl, reverse board sleeve, insert, wall-to-wall hits

    initial copies come with Black Ink Lake: The Leaf library Lyrics 2008-2022 (A5 48 page lyric book printed on recycled paper)

    Includes unlimited streaming of Library Music: Volume One via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 14 days
    edition of 500  32 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      £28 GBP or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Melody Tomb is the first album in a new collaboration between Tokyo artist Teruyuki Kurihara and London drone pop band The Leaf Library.

    The nine tracks here have in common a metallic hum and a minimal, austere kind of beauty that recalls Teru’s work on his 2020 Frozen Dust album (Mille Plateaux). Machine tones mix with static, noise and warm drones, whilst in other places the lineage of classic mangled Warp hardware is visible.

    In March 2020 The Leaf Library sent their friend Teru a batch of synth drones to play with in the hope a new collaboration would be born.

    “From the first time we heard Teru’s music we knew we wanted to make something with him,” says the band. “It has been such a pleasure seeing him take our minimal synth parts and turn them into something really strange and beautiful.”

    The track Kite Beach was the first to arrive, featuring on The Leaf Library-curated Object Ten compilation on Objects Forever in 2021, with the rest of the album slowly appearing over the last year.

    The artists hope to continue the collaboration with another album in the near future.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Library Music: Volume One via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more
    ships out within 14 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      £48 GBP or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Shifts is the debut album from Sea Glass, a new band featuring The Leaf Library’s Matt Ashton with Melinda Bronstein, due out on Friday 14 August via Where It’s At Is Where You Are. This is a set of ten spectral, melancholy songs that combine the minimalism of Young Marble Giants, the acoustic drone of Broadcast’s folkier moments and Liz ‘Grouper’ Harris’s forests of reverb.

    Sparse guitar, ebow drones and fragile synth tones carry Melinda’s layered, repeating vocals over music that is elemental, unhurried and possessed of its own uncomplicated resonance, yet still detailed and engaging. The songs are rooted in the pair’s love of ambient and esoteric modern pop music, sounds made with whatever instruments are to hand, unselfconscious and effortless.

    //

    Beneather is the solo project of Lewis Young - composer and collaborator in The Leaf Library, the drone pop ensemble from north London. As a composer, Lewis recently scored the British short ‘Lucky Break’ which found its way into the BAFTAs short list only to narrowly miss out on the gong.

    Lewis is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, designer and filmmaker currently living in Walthamstow, London. He started as a guitarist in noughties math-rockers Tea with the Queen, shifting to bass for multi-harmonied Naomi Hates Humans before returning to thumping roots as drummer for The Leaf Library. Objects Forever - the imprint label created by The Leaf Library - has provided Lewis with the vehicle to jump back into experimental song craft, inspiring the genesis of Beneather.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Library Music: Volume One via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ... more
    ships out within 14 days
    5 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      £58 GBP or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £7 GBP  or more

     

  • hand decorated test pressing
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    unique test pressing, decorated by Matt from the band, released to raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières

    Includes unlimited streaming of Library Music: Volume One via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

  • hand decorated test pressing
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    unique test pressing, decorated by Matt from the band, released to raise money for Médecins Sans Frontières

    Includes unlimited streaming of Library Music: Volume One via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

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Soundings 03:18
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Diagram Loop 03:31
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Tired Ghost 05:20
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about

"It's like autumn mornings strolling through empty parks, underneath blank newsprint skies like you used to get in Spot The Ball contests & everything feels like a 70s public information film." - Pete Paphides

" record that captures the group’s essence and character, in all its guises. Is this a ‘best of The Leaf Library’ album? No, but it might just be my favourite." - God Is In The TV

" this is on a par – both in terms of genre and quality – with Stereolab’s recently revisited and extended ‘Switched On’ series" - Clash

Library Music: Volume One is a sixteen track double LP documenting the North London drone pop band’s 7” singles, one-offs and compilation tracks spanning the first 14 years of the group’s existence. It includes synth pop, indie fuzz and moody motorik workouts, alongside pastoral folk sketches, dubby electronics and the occasional drone experiment. More immediate than their stretched out and slow-burning recent album tracks, the music here is taken from limited vinyl releases, album bonus tracks and music for compilations on labels as diverse as Bezirk Tapes, Second Language, Modern Aviation, and Concrete Tapes as well as the band’s home for the last seven years, Where It’s At Is Where You Are.

The compilation is a happily cohesive record of an inventive band that rarely stands still for long. The group says, “We wanted to gather all our early, scattered work before we move on to our next album, to remind ourselves (and others) of some of the poppier and less characteristic things we’ve done. We’ve always felt a lot more relaxed and freer making one off things for people – it’s a chance to try things that might otherwise be daunting on a full record.

“We have been introduced to loads of bands that we love initially through non-album compilations – Broadcast, The Chills, Stereolab, Piano Magic, Flying Saucer Attack amongst others – we wanted to add our own to that (admittedly slightly daunting) lineage.”

Always a prolific group this is by no means an exhaustive collection, the title giving a clue to how much more they have left to share.

The Leaf Library are formed around the core group of singer Kate Gibson, former Saloon and Singing Adams guitarist Matt Ashton, guitarist SJ Nelson, drummer Lewis Young and bass player Gareth Jones. They have released three studio albums (Daylight Versions, About Minerals and The World Is A Bell) as well a number of electronic and experimental albums and EPs, remix compilations and long form tracks. They have also released five Monument CDRs; an on-going series of experimental solo and side projects on their Objects Forever imprint (full band discography at theleaflibrary.com).

The band have collaborated with musicians as diverse as Alasdair MacLean of The Clientele, singer Ed Dowie, noise group Far Rainbow and string collective Iskra Strings, and have provided music for a number of exhibitions, films and performances. A collaborative album with Japanese artist Teruyuki Kurihara is due in late 2022 on the Mille Plateaux label.

An active live group, the more delicate sound world of their records is replaced by a much noisier and intense experience, assisted by the addition of vocalist/percussionist Melinda Bronstein, saxophonist Daniel Fordham (The Drink, Steven Adams and the French Drops) and flugelhorn player Laura Copsey of fellow drone pop travellers Firestations.

credits

released October 28, 2022

Recorded at Soup Studio, Hackney Road, Studio Klank, The Drone Lodge and various homes and rehearsal rooms between 2008-2021

Played by Kate Gibson, Matt Ashton, Gareth Jones, Lewis Young, SJ Nelson, Melinda Bronstein and Daniel Fordham with Ben Smith, Mike Cranny, Mark Nicholas, Simon Trought and Giles Barrett
Additional production on B4 by Robin Saville and Antony Ryan

Thanks to Mark Cremins, Where It’s At Is Where You Are, Modern Aviation, Second Language, Concrete Tapes, Kingfisher Bluez, Bezirk Tapes and Cowp for originally releasing this music. Thanks, as ever, to John Jervis for the support and encouragement

Compilation mastered by Antony Ryan at RedRedPaw

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