Blake Leyh - "151 Canal" (mp3)
Like probably a lot of other people, the first I heard or heard of Blake Leyh was watching The Wire and hearing "The Fall," his haunting instrumental end theme, play over the credits at the end of every episode, and more indirectly, hearing his work as the show's music supervisor throughout the series. In the past year or so, I've been in touch with Blake from time to time while writing various things about The Wire's use of local Baltimore music, and haven't met him in person but have spoken on the phone many times, and have found him to be a really nice, sharp guy. So when I heard recently that he released a new solo album, just a week after "The Fall" was finally officially released for the first time last month on The Wire: "...and all the pieces matter," I was interested to hear more of his work.
It turns out that Blake Leyh has released 5 albums and done a lot of film score work over the years, but his new album, X-Ray Yankee Zulu Tango, is a pretty good entry point, at least for me. Most of the tracks feature Andre Burke, the same violinist who played on "The Fall," and passed away last year. And while none of the songs on the album are concise miniatures like that track's beautifully compact one minute and 50 seconds, and often drift and unfold over nine or ten minutes, the overall effect is much the same. The guiding sound is often Leyh's bass, over minimal percussion, with occasional guitar or Burke's violin washing over it all with melody and sneaky other sounds wafting in and out. This is probably too broad of a generalization to actually be true, but it feels like so few musicians who are interested in making restrained instrumental music, outside of a discipline like classical or jazz, still do so with acoustic instruments; virtually everyone with those musical inclinations seems to have gone off into the world of synthesizers and programmed rhythms and whatever it is we call IDM this year. And there's something refreshing and unique about how Leyh's faithful to that kind atmospheric approach without any (or much, at least) of the modern tools or signifiers of dance-oriented ambient music.
I've never been much of a headphone guy; the last time I listened to music on headphones with any regularity was probably 5 or 10 years ago, and I've just never regarded it as an ideal listening situation unless necessary. But I got an iPod for my birthday last month, and after a few weeks of mainly plugging it into a car stereo or into an alarm clock stereo dealie, the other day I finally got around to breaking in the nice Bose headphones I also got as a gift. Over the weekend I was visiting family in Delaware, getting stuff ready for the wedding, and found myself alone down by the boardwalk with nothing to do for a couple hours. There's nothing quite like walking around a tourist trap beach community in the winter when it's practically evacuated, and most of the stores are closed and it's mostly old people walking their dogs. And the two albums that seemed perfect to soundtrack that quiet moment were Bjork's Post (such a cliched headphones album that there's a song called "Headphones" on it) and the long winding instrumentals on X-Ray Yankee Zulu Tango. It's kind of daunting to hear an album under such ideal circumstances that it's practically impossible to ever recreate that moment.
Like probably a lot of other people, the first I heard or heard of Blake Leyh was watching The Wire and hearing "The Fall," his haunting instrumental end theme, play over the credits at the end of every episode, and more indirectly, hearing his work as the show's music supervisor throughout the series. In the past year or so, I've been in touch with Blake from time to time while writing various things about The Wire's use of local Baltimore music, and haven't met him in person but have spoken on the phone many times, and have found him to be a really nice, sharp guy. So when I heard recently that he released a new solo album, just a week after "The Fall" was finally officially released for the first time last month on The Wire: "...and all the pieces matter," I was interested to hear more of his work.
It turns out that Blake Leyh has released 5 albums and done a lot of film score work over the years, but his new album, X-Ray Yankee Zulu Tango, is a pretty good entry point, at least for me. Most of the tracks feature Andre Burke, the same violinist who played on "The Fall," and passed away last year. And while none of the songs on the album are concise miniatures like that track's beautifully compact one minute and 50 seconds, and often drift and unfold over nine or ten minutes, the overall effect is much the same. The guiding sound is often Leyh's bass, over minimal percussion, with occasional guitar or Burke's violin washing over it all with melody and sneaky other sounds wafting in and out. This is probably too broad of a generalization to actually be true, but it feels like so few musicians who are interested in making restrained instrumental music, outside of a discipline like classical or jazz, still do so with acoustic instruments; virtually everyone with those musical inclinations seems to have gone off into the world of synthesizers and programmed rhythms and whatever it is we call IDM this year. And there's something refreshing and unique about how Leyh's faithful to that kind atmospheric approach without any (or much, at least) of the modern tools or signifiers of dance-oriented ambient music.
I've never been much of a headphone guy; the last time I listened to music on headphones with any regularity was probably 5 or 10 years ago, and I've just never regarded it as an ideal listening situation unless necessary. But I got an iPod for my birthday last month, and after a few weeks of mainly plugging it into a car stereo or into an alarm clock stereo dealie, the other day I finally got around to breaking in the nice Bose headphones I also got as a gift. Over the weekend I was visiting family in Delaware, getting stuff ready for the wedding, and found myself alone down by the boardwalk with nothing to do for a couple hours. There's nothing quite like walking around a tourist trap beach community in the winter when it's practically evacuated, and most of the stores are closed and it's mostly old people walking their dogs. And the two albums that seemed perfect to soundtrack that quiet moment were Bjork's Post (such a cliched headphones album that there's a song called "Headphones" on it) and the long winding instrumentals on X-Ray Yankee Zulu Tango. It's kind of daunting to hear an album under such ideal circumstances that it's practically impossible to ever recreate that moment.
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on Tuesday, February 12, 2008 at 11:42 PM.
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