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The Leaf Label | |
---|---|
Founded | 1994 |
Founder | Tony Morley Julian Carrera |
Genre | Various |
Country of origin | UK |
Location | Leeds, Yorkshire, England |
Official website | www |
The Leaf Label is a British independent record label based in Yorkshire, England. Initially an electronic music label, releasing mainly instrumental music, the company's approach now features artists spanning jazz and post-punk.
The Leaf Label was created in late 1994 by Tony Morley; at that time, press officer at 4AD in London, along with his friend Julian Carrera, then working for music press company Stone Immaculate. The pair ran the label as a hobby until the end of 1996, during which time they released a series of eight 12" singles, of mainly electronic music. The label debuted in early 1995 with a 12" release by Boymerang, a project by Graham Sutton of the post-rock band Bark Psychosis, and early releases also included two volumes of the 'Invisible Soundtracks' series of EPs. Following his recovery from a serious road accident in 1995, Morley decided to leave 4AD at the end of 1996, setting up his own independent promo company, No9, and parting company with Carrera around the same time. The company's first office was in Battersea in South West London, later moving to larger premises in Brixton, South London.
The label's first album release was 1997's Silence FM by The Sons Of Silence, a group which consisted of members of O Yuki Conjugate (OYC). OYC also spawned the label's second artist album release, by A Small Good Thing. The label followed these releases with key artist album releases by Faultline, Susumu Yokota, Eardrum and 310 in the late 1990s. Yokota's ambient albums, licensed from his own Skintone label in Japan, remain some of the label's most successful releases.
In 1999, Morley set up the PostEverything mail order operation with Colin Newman (from the band Wire) and web designer Dorian Moore. Morley resigned as a director of the company in 2005, and the site closed in 2008.
The label's first real success of the 2000s came with Dan Snaith's Manitoba, who released two albums under that name in 2001 ( Start Breaking My Heart ) and 2003 ( Up In Flames ). Following a lawsuit by Richard "Handsome Dick" Manitoba of The Dictators, Snaith was obliged to change his artist name, and subsequently became known as Caribou, with his third album, The Milk of Human Kindness , released under that name in 2005. [1]
The label followed the success of Manitoba with a run of debut albums by Murcof, Boom Bip & Doseone and Asa-Chang & Junray in 2002, Colleen in 2003, and A Hawk and a Hacksaw, Psapp and Efterklang in 2004. The label celebrated its tenth anniversary with a week of events in London in October 2005, along with the retrospective 2CD compilation Check The Water. [2]
The company relocated to Horsforth in West Yorkshire in the spring of 2006. Significant releases since then have included Vladislav Delay, Nancy Elizabeth, Oh No Ono, Melt Yourself Down, Wildbirds & Peacedrums and Polar Bear, whose album In Each and Every One was nominated for the 2014 Mercury Prize. [3]
The label moved office again in September 2010 to its current premises, also in Horsforth. The company now also manages a number of artists, and Morley sources music for the Velvet Ears music library, owned by music supervisor Liz Gallacher.
In the autumn of 2015, The Leaf Label celebrated its 20th anniversary [4] with a limited edition box set, vinyl re-issues and a series of concerts in Leeds and London, under the umbrella of 'Leaf 20'. [5] [6] Limited to only 300 copies, The Leaf 20 box set was made available to fans through the PledgeMusic service. [7]
In 2016 Channel the Spirits by The Comet Is Coming was shortlisted for the Mercury Prize as well as making Best Albums Of 2016 lists in Time Out New York , The Quietus , Uncut and Mojo. [8] [9] [10]
The label continued to release from Szun Waves, Warmduscher, Keeley Forsyth, Craven Faults and Sarathy Korwar. [11] Warmduscher's Tainted Lunch came in at number 6 in BBC Radio 6 Music Albums Of The Year 2019 and the (delayed) Record Store Day 2020 saw special releases from Warmduscher, Sarathy Korwar and Snapped Ankles. Debris by Keeley Forsyth, Erratics & Unconformities by Craven Faults and People On Sunday by Domenique Dumont made numerous Album Of The Year lists in 2020, including The Quietus, AllMusic, Rough Trade and Norman Records. [12] [13] [14]
Recent years have seen further critically acclaimed releases from Snapped Ankles, Nightports, Keeley Forsyth, Craven Faults and Sarathy Korwar. In September 2022 the label signed the group Decius. Their 2022 debut album Decius Vol. I was placed at number five in The Quietus Albums Of The Year 2022. [15] [16]
Efterklang is a Danish indie rock group from Copenhagen, formed in December 2000. The band has recorded five studio albums and are currently signed to City Slang their own record label Rumraket.
Susumu Yokota was a Japanese composer. He released several albums under pseudonyms including Stevia, Ebi, and others.
Murcof is the performing and recording name of Mexican electronic musician Fernando Corona. Corona was born in 1970 in Tijuana, Mexico and raised in Ensenada. He was for a time a member of the Tijuana-based Nortec Collective of electronic musicians under the Terrestre project name. In 2000, he returned to Tijuana. Since 2006, Corona has been living in Barcelona, Spain.
Up in Flames is the second studio album by Canadian musician Dan Snaith, released under the moniker Manitoba on March 31, 2003, by The Leaf Label and Domino Recording Company. It is Snaith's second and final album credited under Manitoba, and received critical acclaim when it was released.
Konono Nº1 is a musical group from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo. They are known for their DIY aesthetic, combining electric likembé with vocals, dancers, and percussion instruments that are made out of items salvaged from a junkyard. The group's amplification equipment is equally rudimentary, including a microphone carved out of wood fitted with a magnet from an automobile alternator and a gigantic horn-shaped amplifier. The genre of the band's music has been characterized as difficult to classify; the group themselves have classified their music under the labels of "tradi-modern" and "Congotronics".
Matthew Bourne is an English multi-instrumentalist, primarily working with piano and keyboards.
Keeley Forsyth is an English actress and musician. She has released the albums Debris (2020) and Limbs (2022).
Parades is the second full-length album by the Danish group Efterklang. It marks the first time that the band work with an outside influence; after eighteen months of recording, the band drafted in British producer/engineer Darren Allison to create the final mixes together with Efterklang's own Mads Brauer.
Luke Abbott is an English electronic music producer from Norwich, Norfolk. He records and performs extensively under his own name, under the alias Earlham Mystics, and as one-third of the electronic jazz group Szun Waves. His work has been described as "left-field techno and kraut-infused electro" but also draws on more esoteric elements of improvisation, "psychedelic, filtered beats and slow-evolving synths".
Wildbirds & Peacedrums is a Swedish duo, Mariam Wallentin and husband Andreas Werliin.
Rhythm is the fourth full-length album by Swedish husband and wife duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums, released on The Leaf Label on 3 November 2014.
Warmduscher are a London-based post-punk band formed in 2014 and currently signed to independent record label Bella Union.
Szun Waves is a British band composed of electronic producer Luke Abbott, Laurence Pike of PVT on drums and Jack Wyllie of Portico Quartet on saxophone. The band combines elements of spiritual and experimental jazz with electronic music. Their debut album At Sacred Walls was released in 2016. In August 2018 they released the follow-up, New Hymn To Freedom.
Laurence Pike is an Australian drummer and electronic musician. He studied at Sydney Conservatorium of Music under Mike Nock. Pike has specialised in improvised music, "[integrating] everything from jazz to psych to ambient to ... experimental electronic".
New Hymn to Freedom is the second studio album by British band Szun Waves. It was released on 31 August 2018 through The Leaf Label.
Sarathy Korwar is a US-born, Indian-raised, London-based drummer, percussionist, composer and bandleader. He works predominantly in a jazz and Indo jazz field but also incorporates elements of hip-hop, and other fusions.
More Arriving is the second studio album by US-born, Indian-raised, London-based drummer, percussionist, composer and bandleader Sarathy Korwar.
Debris is the debut album by British actress and musician Keeley Forsyth, released in 2020.
Kalak is the fourth studio album by London-based jazz musician Sarathy Korwar. The album, which was produced by Photay, was released via The Leaf Label on 11 November 2022.
Decius are a London-based band made up of brothers Liam and Luke May together with Quinn Whalley and Fat White Family frontman Lias Saoudi. They are signed to The Leaf Label and make music that draws on acid house, disco and techno.