Song Exploder - The Album Leaf - The Outer Banks

Episode Date: January 15, 2014

Jimmy LaValle of The Album Leaf takes apart The Outer Banks, a song he recorded in Iceland with members of Sigur Ros accompanying him. He reveals how the melody of the song was made from a glockenspiel, violin, and Moog synthesizer; and he talks about the importance of letting go of control during the recording process. 

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hurway. In this episode, Jimmy Laval from The Album Leaf breaks down his song, The Outer Banks. The Album Leaf is primarily a solo project, but for the Outer Banks, Jimmy collaborated with members of the Icelandic band Sigurose. Coming up, Jimmy strips the song down to its parts and talks about the value of letting go of control during recording. Here's The Outer Banks by the Album Leaf on Song Exploder. My name is Jimmy LaValle and I do the album leaf. Sigurros in 2001 asked me to tour with them.

I had never heard of them at the time. And it was when the first record came out. Yeah, I'm not going to even say it. Egetus Bjorn, I think is what is. That's how you say it. Basically, I guess they picked up my record that was out at the time in 2001, which was one day I'll be on time at a record shop. in Iceland, then they all heard the record and invited me on tour.

2001 was my first tour with them, 2003 was my second, and kind of my band, my backing band for that 2003 European tour turned out to be, you know, Carrie, Maria, and Ori from Siguros, which is who's on this song. Because of that tour in 2003, they had their own studio in Iceland, Sigeroz did, and invited me to come out and make a record at their studio. It's like, hey, hey, come out to Iceland, recorded our studio. It's great, it's beautiful.

It's serene. It's magical. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We have all this amazing equipment. Sure, of course, I will come out to Iceland and record because that sounds like something I would really like to do. I just got a loop pedal, a Kai head rush, which I use to this day on my Rhodes piano. So originally the road's loop that you hear that starts the song was basically a loop that I made, you know, with my headrush pedal. So that loop is consistent throughout the whole song basically, and the whole

song is kind of structured and written underneath that loop. I had, with my microchorg, just kind of came up with a bass line underneath that loop. And I guess I tend to do that a lot where the bass line is kind of more so the melody than the top. It's another thing is obviously I didn't have my own Rhodes piano that I normally used to record with out in Iceland. So we've, borrowed this, actually it was a studio roads, which are the ones with the speakers cabinets attached to the bottom, and I play a stage. And the pedal of the roads squeaked. So that's also in the recording. And we tried to like make it, we tried to bring it up. And I was kind of conscious of it too when we played it. So I'd be like, fuck, it's scratched it. It squeaked again. But then I was like, I was into it.

So what made you decide to turn it up? I think it was just because it was just really cool. It was just like, that's cool. I don't know. And it was natural. to the take. It was natural to the environment, the memory, I guess, later. Like, you know, listening to these things. This was a song I recorded over 10 years ago. Now, it's kind of cool. Just like, remember, oh yeah, that's right. I couldn't use my own roads. I couldn't use any of my own stuff. I had to use all of their stuff that was there. Yeah, it was all these things. During the 2003 tour, I just remembered, like, I was always working on this song. Like, programming, especially, because I kind of was a really, I guess, really aimed.

about programming and I use a program called fruity loops which was what I did the majority of my programming in and I would basically import those files into Vegas video and do a lot of my tweaking and you know drum tricks within Vegas because you could pull you could stretch out waveforms and have it do that like all those like weird sounds that you can hear in the programming kind of more a FX twin inspired things like even like square pusher and aifx twin A lot of no twist. And coincidentally, ever since I changed to switch to Mac and switched to Pro Tools,

I've not done those sounds again because I haven't found a way to do them. Essentially, when I got to Iceland to make the record, the song was the first half of the song, as you hear it. Basically, the Rhodes idea, the bass idea, and the drums programming, those three ideas, which is basically how the song starts and what you first hear throughout the first half of it. I think the Glocknerspiel comes in kind of to kind of tease on the melody, but that was something that Keratin had added in Iceland. I think I was even gone to lunch or something and I came back and Keratin had put this Glockenspiel melody on there, which turned out to be kind of the main melody of the song.

So there was that melody, and then that melody basically turned into, I think Maria, we just had Maria double it, and I added a prodig on it and turned out to be the... ORI first came in and then heard this song Outer Banks and it's like, oh, I'll put drums on that. And I was really, really surprised by what Ory did. You know, he kind of like dropped in this beat that's, it makes it feel like three, four, what he's playing and the rhythm that he's, it's just this weird off rhythm that you, I did not expect at all. So as you hear by themselves, it doesn't really sound like the beat or the rhythm of the song at all, but it's the way that he laid them down underneath the electronic beats. You know, it just creates this really cool counter, you know, polyrhythm between the two instruments.

Keratin also added a Hammond, B3 organ, in there, which I think is really cool and really creepy, and it's got like really honest mistakes because he didn't really know the same. song. He kind of was like, you know, learning it as he was tracking it. Um, he kind of had like a starting point and was just like, oh, okay, this, okay, cool. And he's just kind of, you know, it's in the same key the whole time. So he's just kind of like, you know, jamming over it. Um, and, you know, anticipated it and kind of opened it and drove it more, um, you know, with the kind of as the song builds, he builds the, you know, the tone of the organ too, which I think is

really, really cool. Um, I can play that snip where he kind of like goes from, um, you know, what it's, what a nice soft organ and then turns it into kind of a really driven as the song opens up. You can see, you can hear him kind of like, oh, oh yeah, it happens right there. Oh, let me throw on that bass now. Oh, there it is, you know, it's kind of, it's kind of, it's really cool. And like kind of just weird, you know, kind of noodling around a little bit, trying to find the right thing and then, but it really works and it's really, really cool. I control a lot of what I do when I record with the exception of probably these two records. I think I started to get a little bit more controlled after this record. Back then, I didn't really know how to edit like I do now, you know,

and that's kind of a dangerous thing too because I'm pretty, you know, quick and can fix things that are slightly off. You know, I have to kind of always like let those things go. But when I record with people, you know, I kind of like things to be in the moment in raw. And a lot of times it works. And if it doesn't work, I can always fix it. So, you know, back then it was just like, it works. there's no like wrong note he might not have like hit that d on the one but he got there on like

the two and a half or something like that you know what i mean like not not right there but it still is cool and it's there and it works and it's awesome you know i can the towards the end of the song i think ori and ory's meter and the actual drumming or actual programming of the song and the feel ori really wanted to you know push it and you can hear it to the end of the song it kind of just gets kind of sloppy, but kind of in a really nice way. And I don't think I would have let that slide today. I probably would have gotten in and, like, fixed it and like made it, you know, controlled.

But back then it was just like, oh, this is rad. This is cool, you know. I don't think there's been a show we've played since this record came out that we have played the song. I think still to this day, I mean, I have like, you know, I have a tattoo that's like an Iceland kind of reference. I am very fond of Iceland in my time that I spent there and I think that some of the melodies there's a melody in this song that is like a melody that means something to me I don't know what

it means I don't know what it is but I mean I get sometimes I'll get choked up when I play that when I hit that when we hit that part of the song I'll I'll be like oh yeah there's that it's like it just feels like it's like happy or like you know it's just like this is so this part is so awesome to me, you know, it just makes me feel good. It's kind of where like the roads, kind of starts to kind of like, you know, quote unquote solo, you know, and then the melody, that main melody comes back. That moment, like when those things happen together, I'm always just like, yeah, you know, I don't know, there's something about it. It's just like, I don't know what it is. You know, it's not like my grandma died or my, you know, blah, blah, whatever. It's just like.

And now here's the Outer Banks by the Album Leaf in its entirety. Visit SongExploder.net for links to more info on the album Leaf as well as Cigarose. You'll also find links to the influences that Jimmy mentioned, Aifex Twin, Square Pusher, and the No Twist. I have a new album of my own coming out on April 24th. It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishykesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of

of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Robe. I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show, that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzukas, Josh Molina, Minjin Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last

Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, Rishi-kash.co. Or just go to songexploader.net slash live. That's songexploader.net slash live. Thanks. You can find all of the past episodes of the podcast and subscribe to future episodes at iTunes.com slash songexploder. You can also find Song Exploder on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

I send out mixtapes on Fridays on my newsletter. You can find links to all of these at songexploder.net. Song Exploder is a proud member. of Radiotopia from PRX. My name is Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.