Leaf - Rooted From Within Reviews »
Mixing trip-hop and abstract hip-hop, the first opus of Leaf proposes a sensual and harmonious vision of the two styles. Rooted From Within overflows of a new energy and adds its contribution to the building with an original approach of the hip-hop.
The shade of Master DJ Shadow planes clearly on the first three pieces. Wooden Body Guy develops from the start a quiet atmosphere where invite violoncello and happy perfectly controlled. The melody and the rate/rhythm marry with wonder. But where Leaf shows the extent of its talent in the most convincing way, it east can be with Human Wilt. Without alienating traditional kind, it poses happy a péchu which does not have cure of the traditional loops. The more the album advances, the more the rate/rhythm becomes more and more complex, until reaching its paroxysm with Wasted Things. If Leaf intends to leave its trace, it is well in its way of alternating sonic spaces and jerked accelerations. The variety of the melodies, versed in an abstract hip-hop which does not have anything to envy DJ Signify, is impressive. Lounge groovy, electro-minimal candencé way drum’ low, or trip hop more dark in Massive Attack; the artist does not cease surprising.
Parallel to this exercise of pointed style, Rooted From Within makes the good share with the vocal services. Sometimes the rap, incisive and powerful, breakage the quietude of the pieces (Paper Dollar, Rooted From Within). Sometimes the feminine voices bring to them a little sweetness (Southern Shadow). Also, in love ones with the kind will appreciate the talents of turntablist of which our man makes proof on Rip’ Grip. Sample grésillant with the mandoline way DJ Krush, Leaf proves that it has the talent of a type-setter out-par. It can play with the styles to impose its own receipt: an abstract hip-hop deep, eclectic, with multiple savours; an abstract hip-hop which never does not fall into the stereotype.
We have to make well with a key with very of genius. Leaf succeeds where DJ Shadow disappoints: to open the abstract hip-hop on other horizons, to break the chains of a kind failing to insufflate a new breath to him. There is extremely to bet that the artist will be to have a place. This first album shows with brilliance that it is able to exploit the models by largely exceeding them. Rooted From Within is absolutely necessary for the fans of abstract hip-hop; the curious ears will find there as for them undoubtedly their account.
**translated from French**
dmute Chronicle by Abstrackt
03/10/2009
Leaf - Made Into Itself Reviews »
Is there a bittersweet poetry to the city? A light that never goes out? Back streets whispering your name in foreign tongues? You could come to believe so when listening to this record, the culmination of Steve Wicks’s eight-year journey of finding an own voice.
While the label’s main motto “anxious urban prophesy” and comparisons to masters such as Massive Attack (their trade-mark flame burns dimly in the upper right corner) are reflected by “Made into itself”’s eclectic character, the rumbling noise and the shuffle of HipHop and Breakbeats, this record, however, has much more to offer. Luscious passages of etherial tenderness evoke pictures of bizarre spaces, naure and warm solitude. Already the four first tracks take the listener to more corners of Wick’s mind than would fit most people’s entire record collection: The brooding sadness of “Cut the Leash”, the floating beats of “Light Blue Morning”, the nervous nature of “Coffee Drinker” and the deep labyrinth of “Intelligent Design” confuse the senses and shake your vision of reality – and all of this in under 15 minutes! But there’s more: minor key piano motives, ethno-voices, philosophical rapping, drum mantras and even a trippy folk song.
Suspicious records haven’t shied away from drawing resounding parallels, but their promises were nothing but true. “We hope that you will find this masterpiece every bit as beautiful and essential as we do”, they remark on their homepage. Chances are high that you will.
tocafi - Mouvement Nouveau
Intelligent without being pretentious, dark without being comic, Leaf picks up the rainy-night trip hop mantle last carried by DJs Shadow and Signify. Thankfully, he strays away from second rate emulation by overlooking traditional hip hop and delving into glitchy breaks, jungle-inspired sequencing, and a uniquely bleak ambience.
BPI - URB, best of 2005 issue
I was first introduced to Leaf when I heard Paperdress on the Fuck compilation put out by Hive Records a year ago. I have been waiting for this album to come out since the day I heard that song, and finally, after a long intermission from releases, Made into Itself has been released on the Suspicious Records sublabel of Hive. I am absolutely not disappointed. This album is probably the best one I have picked up all year.
Made into Itself is a dark instrumental hip-hop/trip-hop album broken up by the occasional long sample or spoken word piece. The production is great, using a minimal pallette of sound that are well seperated and easy to pick out. The whole thing is given a grainy lo-fi wash, giving it that sound like you are listening to an old crackling record. There is a constant low-level rush of noise in the background that is barely noticeable, and vocals and instruments break up ever so slightly. I think using this kind of treatment in a digital medium can be ridiculous at times, but it is done tastefully on this album and adds to the feeling, which I think is the best part about it.
This is a pefect disc to put on the stereo at night, turn out the lights and close your eyes, and just let your mind wander. The slow beats, un-intrusive sampling, and aged sound give that melancholic relaxation that you can only get from music. The track placement is laid out well, and the vocal parts are spread out nicely so the CD does not get too repetative. Everything meshes well, and when you are done listening to the last track you get a feeling of hearing a complete album.
There is one thing that I have a little issue with. Almost all of the tracks clock in at under three minutes long. The few tracks that are over five minutes are usually seperated into two distinct parts. The perception that you get is that you are listening to short ideas that haven’t been developed into full songs. This is more true towards the first half of the album rather than the latter part. Giving it a forth listen through right now as I write this review, I don’t think this is entirely bad. It feels like I am hearing a bunch of incomplete but connected thoughts that end up conveying a coherent story. All the little pieces fit together to form a full picture.
I’ll finish this review complimenting the very beautiful artwork on the jewel case inserts. This album is classy all the way around, and another wonderful emission from the hive. I am very excited to see where this record label goes from here, and I am keeping my eyes peeled for more recordings by Leaf. Make sure to grab a copy soon, because I’m sure they will be long gone by next year. This will be one you keep coming back to.
Mike - Dull Orange Pulse
Let us begin with the presentation of the label: Suspicious Records is a new label, or rather a new division within the American label Hive Records, mainly dedicated to hard electronic music with breakbeats and industrial influences. The new Suspicious division is dedicated to what you could call “urban grooves”, with the first album by Leaf which promises a beautiful future with the label.
One is indeed immediately conquered by Cut The Leash which opens the album: a concentrated track at two minutes and twenty seconds, which goes right to the goal with planing guitars, rhythmic hip-hop, and melancholic chords. You’re reminded of the post-rock/hip-hop mixture of the last Sixtoo album, then of Third Eye Foundation on Light Blue Morning with rhythmic drum’ N disillusioned bass and choruses.
In two tracks, Leaf cuts to the chase, but one is not at the end of our surprises since the album contains 15 titles, all successes delivering the same kind of atmosphere: downtempo instrumental hip-hop, in which the acoustic instruments bring a certain light with absolutely marvellous melodies and sonorities. The sampling holds of course a significant part in this album, and will cause perhaps comparison with DJ Shadow (which, by the way, is not a detriment), by mixing many types of sounds, influencing their rythmic core: irish folk, chinese mandoline, the songs of whales, and other marks of traditional music as on Even Holy Things Die, or the chords of His Whole Life.
There is something in this disc, an environment, a little dark atmosphere without being unhealthy, which is built gently and creates a universe which one will leave only when the disc stops. There is then the impression of listening to a band composing for experimental film or sound poetry, an impression reinforced by some interludes or track endings that rest on voices, spoken word over a detached piano, a female murmur extracted from a film, or the more traditional hip-hop flow of one MC (on the track Intelligent Design).
An excellent discovery, highly advised to those who liked Chewing On Glass & Other Miracle Cures by Sixtoo or The Private Press of DJ Shadow.
[Translated from French] Fabrice Allard - Etherreal Magazine
Unlike most other polyrhythmic mood-noise DJs whose druthers lean toward shock value, Leaf (Steve Wick, in other words) has an adamantly soft side that refuses the use of nerve-jangling feedback spikes or anything else that’s loud and handy. With such a romantic bent, the only things sure to go bump in the night are skulls against headboards while partaking of these droid-love soap-opera rhapsodies. Forged out of haunting, gawking-out-windows-at-the-rain solitude, Made Into Itself is deeply personal, defying any easy, dismissive labeling as soundtrack. It will remind electro-fans of the more lighter passages of Noise Unit – in terms of sequencer prowess it falls somewhere between that and anything in the Warp Records stable that has a few loose ends – but there’s something Spike Lee about it all that harnesses big-city isolation and makes it somehow less angst-inducing. Melancholy in the main (witness the love-crazed def poetry of Intelligent Design wherein the ills of the world are recognized as having made negative impacts on a relationship), the compositions Krazy-Glue themselves to any part of the brain that revels in self-analysis best served during ungodly hours. There are signs of hopefulness, slick as they are. Cut the Leash comprises a rippled lagoon of echoing, box-like guitar straight out of the Robbie Blunt School of Come-Hither Smolder, doubling as appetizer for the album’s atmospheric spread and as launching pad for the snake-charming Moroccan accents of Light Blue Morning. Later, under the quiet, psychedelic-breakbeat protection of Lounge Dealers, Wick explores his Jello Biafra (actually Prince) side, waxing punkish but unobvious in a rant about artificial intelligence and God. Not that Wick is the only perpetrator of such things, but a little less forced-hipness and more coherence of slant is called for here – if techno is the new punk rock, there isn’t time to spare deciphering Purple Rain babbling dressed as thought-provoking lecture. Just putting that out there – Wick’s intelligence and fascination are intact, and the very idea of creating real awareness is never a bad thing, but hopefully next time he won’t indulge in such Sony-approved trappings and speak directly from his anger. On the lighter side, Coffee Drinker fully embodies the subject content, Dido-esque acoustic guitars creating a relaxed drive-time ambience, while Song of Trees lays in a hammock of unhurried piano for its first half (since it’s the closing song, there’s the requisite 1.3-minutes-of-silence before a hidden trip-hop track shows up).
Eric W. Saeger - Subculture Magazine
Energized by encrusted, rope-a-dope beats and deepened by mournful string atmospheres, Leaf’s gritty, hour-long travelogue Made Into Itself weaves through narcotized lairs and night-time urban zones. Though faint traces of folktronica, dancehall, and drum’n'bass occasionally surface, Leaf’s primary focus is smoked-out and blunted instrumental hip-hop. Beats slam purposefully throughout Paperdress [New Version], one of the set’s strongest moments, with Leaf arranging the elements into a compelling, string-laden whole and dropping the beats altogether during the song’s somber passages. Funky pulses stream through fields of dense crackle in the equally memorable Glitch Exercise while the occasional boost of energized vitality (Full Booklet) offsets the album’s predominantly slow lope. The album’s not perfect, however. While vocal elements enhance Made Into Itself during some moments (the soulful pleas in Prism and a female singer’s “Here you are all alone in the city” in the Anticon-flavoured hidden track), voice samples are used excessively, and the spoken rant on Intelligent Design and sophomoric pontificating on Lounge Dealers largely grate. Generally speaking, Leaf’s voice samples do add variety and texture but it’s his instrumental constructions that impress most.
Ron Schepper - Textura
“Highly recommended listening for driving, fucking, or taking to a cold street at dawn”, so die Presseinfo zu diesem Album. Und man muss dem eigentlich zustimmen. Leaf weckt mit diesem Werk dunkle Emotionen. Ganz in der Tradition solcher Trip-Hop Größen wie Massive Attack oder Tricky wird hier Dekadenz nah am seelischen Abgrund musikalisch aufbereitet. Die zum Teil surrealen Klanggebilde lassen einen in einem Moment schweben und dann in eine unheilvolle Nachtmahr fallen. „Intelligent Design“ beispielsweise kommt mit breit angelegten Streichern daher, die sich allerdings immer wieder in unvorhersehbare Töne verlieren, die eine anfänglich beruhigende Wirkung ins Gegenteil verkehrt. Auch „Prism“ verfährt nach diesem Prinzip. Höhepunkt dieses Oeuvres: „Even Holy Things Die“ mit einer wunderbaren weiblichen Stimme. Einziges Manko bei dieser Produktion: Manche Songs sind einfach scheinbar unmotiviert ausgefaded, was so ein bisschen den Eindruck einer Snippet-Version hat. Aber auch das wird zur Philosophie von Leaf gehören. Nur nicht perfekt sein: „keep it dirty, keep it underground“.
Nuuc - Elektrauma
The first release on Hive Records’ new imprint label, Suspicious, Leaf’s Made Into Itself tracks across slumbering hip-hop and dreamy trip-hop as it merges movie samples, caustic MC raps and dislocated voices into a cinematic road trip. A clear departure from Hive’s more amphetamine-driven power rhythms, Made Into Itself is a moody bit of work that grew on me as I let it run as background music for a few days. Most of the fifteen tracks run in the less than three minute range (just right in some cases, too short in others), and they hang in my head as mood music, tiny soundtracks that engender moods of melancholic retrospection and internalized wool-gathering. While Leaf (Steve Wick in the part of wizard behind the production deck) will occasionally mar a mood with a lengthy movie sample (most have a tendency to run overlong), it is the instrumental shuffle, the grime and glitz of the urban hip-hop, that keeps me nodding.
There is a crackle of lo-fi noise in “Prism,” a whisper of old vinyl beneath the harp and clavier intro and the distant whale song that submerges the listener into a deep morphic spiral. A downtempo siren credited as “Amanda” on the liner notes slinks in as the beats grow to a climax, pulling us out the other side of the ocean dive with her seductive voice. The music of “Lounge Dwellers” is strictly background music for the spoken word piece that categorizes the death of action and activity in the modern generation (”All your base belongs to us, lazy commerce whores!” as it were), while “Paperdress” glitters and grumbles with its winsome chimes and its hard beats, spooking with its rhythms while a solitary cello sings an aria for the nocturnal wanderer.
“Glitch Exercise” molds trip-hop to the particulated effects of microglitch, spinning deep drums and hand claps to the skittering sound of sand across a microphone and static sizzling through an input line. A synth melody glides like a stop-motion sunrise over the bedrock of the rhythms and the whole track lives and dies in three minutes. Boil an egg, check your mail, water the plants: the “Glitch Exercise” will keep you company for that finite slice of your day. “Sevenhundredeightytwo Ways To Wake Up” shivers with left-over glitch, detritus that has slipped across the divide and is still crackling in your speakers. Meanwhile tiny tones rise like streaks of light behind the adagio ramble of a piano. In the end, after three minutes of being massaged by this day-breaking concerto, a spoken word piece slips into your receptive brain. “Know you,” the voice concludes, “and search for nothing less than absolute truth.” As an aphorism to start your day, you could do a lot worse.
There’s a lot to like on Made Into Itself. Wick has put down a diverse collection of mood music that definitely has flavors of Anticon, Massive Attack and DJ Krush. As accompaniment for nocturnal wool-gathering, solitary wandering or quiet intimacy, Made Into Itself is a welcome soundtrack. A very nice new direction for Hive Records and hopefully the opening standard for more to come.
Mark Teppo - Igloo Magazine
Leaf’s new CD is a combination of suburban hip-hop poetics and trip-hop vibe. Using the work of Tricky and Massive Attack as reference material, Leaf seems intent on staying focused on what’s going on now, rather than relying on sentimental glances.
Initially I fell into the trap of saying “I‘ve heard this before”, but I chose to give this CD another listen and discovered that I wasn‘t really paying close enough attention the first time around.
“Cut the Leash” is an engaging opening instrumental track, and sets the tone for the rest of the CD. I was very impressed with the use of samples, strings, and piano throughout, along with the quality of the lyrical content. “Intelligent Design” morphs from an instrumental track into poetically poignant rantology on the social condition of contracts, cons, and confusion. “Prism” strikes the nerve of lo-fi trip-hop, complete with scratched and faded vocals, whereas “Paperdress” is another stirring instrumental. “His Whole Life” is another example of a string and sample-laden instrumental that morphs into poetics with the exquisite line, “They didn’t break my mind, but they broke my heart when they tore the world apart”. The final track, “Song of Trees,” ends the CD on an upbeat note.
“Made Into Itself” is recommended for those that like the aforementioned genres, or are looking for something new to try.
Michael Casano - Virus Magazine
This is definitely an unconventional record when compared to the rest of the Hive records roster, but that’s probably why Hive decided to put it out under their new subdivision Suspicious Records. Leaf (whose other side projects include Nevrland, Biogliphic, & Blunt Force Crew) is a dark record that walks the paths of experimental hip-hop (mostly instrumental, but you’ll get your fair share of rhymes as well) and stops at every intersection to mingle with the cross-roads of trip hop, orchestral arrangements, electronica etc. Leaf likes it lo-fi and raw around the edges, he experiments with samples (a lot of which come from movies) and he flips his shit around on top of sticky beats, hypnotic layers of sounds, minimal turntableism and british-sounding female singing voices opposed to black male voices dropping their lyrics into the mixture. If you like Everlast, Massive Attack, Dj Shadow, Dj Signify, Tricky etc you’ll probably dig this. That’s whassup dog!
Marc Urselli-Schaerer - Chain DLK
“Made Into Itself” is haunting and subliminal. With its chilled-down and tripped-out experimental hip-hop/trip-hop, the debut album from Leaf (on Hive Records sublabel, Suspicious) has little difficulty finding a place among familiar Anticon and Warp peers. Instrumental constructions with a smattering of sampling, singing, spoken-word and abstract lyricism, “Made Into Itself” is a magnum opus - an actualization of city-gazing solitude and rain on glass, crackling and humming with yesterday’s grainy lo-fi wash. It is music for grimy sunsets and long empty blocks, windblown train yards and worn velvet barstools.
Though the self-aggrandizing sermons on “Intelligent Design” and “Lounge Dealers” subtract substance from the album, these vainglorious distractions only add to its charm in the end. Effortlessly Leaf captivates the listener with a solid collection of densely melodic, soulful tracks, mesmerizing textures and mournful strings. Some tracks seem cut short (the slow fade in “Light Blue Morning”); perhaps a nod to the production’s gritty, unfinished aesthetic. Longest is the album’s closing “Song of Trees,” made possible by a hidden track well worth the wait.
Never content to simply be the soundtrack for a hands-in-your-pockets, malt-liquor-and-cigarettes chilly urban morning, “Made Into Itself” wanders through a few stylistic tangents with admirable result. The copacetic, acid groove of “Glitch Exercise” hails its IDM brethren, while “Full Booklet” kicks the beat back to the beginnings of intelligent drum ‘n bass with an easy, street-wise pace. A natural compliment to violins and mandolins are the languid, honey-dipped vocals on “Prism” and “Even Holy Things Die.” Thankfully “Made Into Itself” never fails to maintain its defining darker undercurrents, where key instruments, soporific chords and intelligent loops exude a pervasive and melancholy glow.
9 / 10
Sandswept - Connexion Bizarre
This is the first release on Hive records sub label Suspicious - and if this is the direction they’ll be taking I’m all for it. I’d heard the previews online and was looking forward to giving this one a listen. It’s a nicely laid back CD, with lots of organic sounding layers topped off with some not too intrusive tripped out beats. The album flows nicely and works as entire piece, the instrumental tracks being broken up by some monologue protest style vocal tracks - works a lot better when you listen to it than when you describe it. The tone of the overall album is very sombre - this isn’t something to listen to if you’re already in a bad space.
8 / 10
Owen - Black Harvest
Hive Records grounded a new sub-label called Suspicious Records to release a more trip-hop orientated music style. The first band to be released by Suspicious Records is Leaf, centered around Wick, Dove, Jack & others. Leaf present the darker side of life by means of filmic soundscapes (Intelligent design), larded with ominous spoken words, a romantic score with a black rap speech on top of it, medieval intrumentation as intro, samples of whales (Prism) and sticky trip hop rhythms. Each few minutes the music changes completely and several tracks have been devided in several parts.
It’s like driving in a big U.S. city and everytime you change direction, the music changes as well. This is hard to grab; but urban, obscure, dark, gritty and dangerous at the same time. Be careful, not recommended to those who are afraid in the dark or feel uncomfortable alone.
Phosphor Magazine
An excellent socially conscious record that challenges your mind while entertaining it at the same time. Instrumental for the most part, Made into Itself sets the bar higher than you’d think.Suspicious Records, a new offshoot label of Hive Records, chose LEAF’s Made into Itself as their first release. This was a superb decision, for LEAF has created a very beautiful and socially conscious record that merits high regard.
There are some tracks on Made into Itself that sound very reminiscent of Ulver’s 2001 release, Perdition City. These two albums share some of the same electronic arrangements, but it is highly doubtful that this was intentional. Unfortunately, some artists in the electronic scene use similar, if not the same kinds of recording equipment as other artists do, thus making their records sound very familiar; that’s what happened here. Luckily for LEAF, Made into Itself is a phenomenal release which stands on it’s own ground, which makes it easier for Ulver fans to ignore certain similarities. And seeing as how most Ulver fans come from the underground metal scene (due to their black metal past), LEAF will most likely have nothing to worry about.
Made into Itself is an instrumental album for the most part, with only a few moments of male/female vocal wailings and intense samples. The samples are what make this an interesting record. For example, the eighth track, “Lounge Dealers” starts off as a soothing and mellow ambient track, with drum n’ bass moments thrown in to give the song a good beat, interrupted towards the end of the song with a long spoken word diatribe that almost comes across as a rap song, but fortunately remains free of typical clichés from that genre. LEAF treats their listeners with a rant that challenges the ideas about the various religions on Earth. A novel concept indeed, and it’s done with class. At no point do LEAF attempt to force overbearing ideological beliefs with the spoken word interlude, but rather give you an interesting idea to digest.
There are other moments of interesting dialogue here and there on Made into Itself, but the samples are not the forefront of this release. LEAF masterfully put together elements of drum & bass, ambient, electronica, and string arrangements to make a very subdued, yet engrossing listen. Starting off with the track “Cut the Leash,” LEAF takes you on a mellow and somber journey, which meanders through nearly all facets of the electronic genres, and that ride doesn’t stop until the last track, “Song of Trees.” Both the male and female vocals are excellent, and for the most part they serve as a background to the electronic soundscapes.
Made into Itself is a fine record that should make both LEAF and Suspicious Records proud. It’s not often when an obscure disc comes along and impresses you, but LEAF accomplishes this in stride.
4 Stars.
Matt Jones - Re>Gen Magazine
“Made Into Itself” is the debut release by Dallas-based producer Steve Wick in the guise of Leaf. The album is also the inaugural release of new Hive Records sub-label Suspicious Records and is limited to just 450 copies. Wick’s music embraces the interesting, although not entirely new, concept of sampling and “borrowing” soundbites from strange recordings, TV programmes and other music or spoken word sources. Utilising anything from sampled quotes to entire passages of music, sampling them and adding laidback trip-hop beats and dubby instrumentation Wick forms something new and creative. Similarities with “Mezzanine” era Massive Attack, Tricky and particularly DJ Shadow are all relevant in this genre of creating new music from old. Sources as diverse as Chinese mandolin and 70’s folk music are used alongside carefully chosen movie quotes and occasional hip-hop musings. Besides exhibiting an air of cool confidence throughout, “Made Into Itself” also shows a sense of humour and a more serious topical side through the mood portrayed by the music, the careful selection of appropriate samples and the vocal accompaniment of several collaborators. At times “Made Into Itself” is chilled out and relaxed, almost ambient, as with the smooth bassy breaks and ethereal female harmonies of ‘Light Blue Morning’ or the appropriately glitched up floating ambience of ‘Glitch Exercise;. The Recoil-esque ‘Coffee Drinker’ is darker and moodier but tracks such as ‘Full Booklet’ and the dubby ‘Nonsense Went’ better represent the slick beats, breaks and hip hop influences evident throughout. At the other end of the scale, Wick also chooses to tackle such controversial and thought-provoking subjects as social attitudes (’Sevenhundredeightytwo Ways to Wake Up’), racism (’Intelligent Design’ - the closing lyrics of which give the album its name) and religion (’Lounge Dwellers’). Don’t let this put you off however, as “Made Into Itself” is a beautifully constructed, ever evolving and consistent album.
PRL - Aural Pressure
I’ve been sitting on this one for quite some time, but I can only review so much music without going crazy, so I apologize. “Made Into Itself” is the debut album from Leaf on the Suspicious Records label (sub label of Hive Records).
One question before we begin. Why are a lot of the tracks under 4 minutes? They all seem to come off as unfinished thoughts. Beautifully gorgeous unfinished thoughts, but unfinished thoughts nonetheless. At times, “Made Into Itself” feels like an album filled with samples of songs instead of actual songs. Maybe the concept went over my head? I’m not sure.
Regardless, there’s a plethora of beautiful material to be found here, from the dub sounds of “Nonsense Went” to the trippy acoustics of “Even Holy Things Die,” Leaf keeps the jams diverse and extremely satisfying. “His Whole Life” sounds like Moby gone Trip-Hop. I’ve noticed a lot of people saying the poetic rants of tracks like “Lounge Dealers” take away from the release, but I actually thought they were quite good and added diversity to the album.
Bottom line, “Made Into Itself” is a stunning collection of Alternative urban Hip-Hop sounds, masterful intricate Glitch Electronica and grooved out Trip-Hop. My only gripe is that the tracks aren’t longer, music this good needs to have some length!
8/10
Stan Robinson - Re:Automation Webzine
Ambition is a wonderful force in every strata of life, and Leaf doesn’t hesitate to make their broad ambitions known on Made Into Itself. This particular blend of instrumentally symphonic beats takes the spirit of Anticon and runs with it. Every song reinforces the existential woes of work and the absurdity of materialism in the tradition of the great Sole and Sage Francis. Although not remarkably original, Leaf’s experimentation with cello, acoustic guitar and other instruments makes their motivated compositions fiercely interesting.
Fred Miketa - XLR8R
Made Into Itself is instrumental hip-hop with a grey ribbed turtleneck and a pair of dark-rimmed Brooks Brothers glasses. It’s erudite and discerning, a bit standoffish but delightfully clever when you sit down and chat over a couple of import ales. A bookish vibe pervades every aspect of Leaf’s music, from the way that their boom-bap drum loops crackle like the binding of a first edition Hardy doorstopper to the crinkled-brow poetry that spills over textured wave fields and loping violin. Only the details subvert the album’s calm and collected surface: we get discordant key plinks and glossed over background drones in the first section of “Coffee Drinker”, while select lines in the spoken word segments paint a bleak future (”Faust gave us Mephistopheles, George Lucas gave us Lord Vader”). These subtle flourishes help to fill out drawing room chillout jams like “Intelligent Design”, whose simplistic rhythm patterns and mesmeric strings feel more like a wallpaper pattern than a skillful portrait. When Leaf perform hypnosis without losing their eye for detail, as they do on “Even Holy Things Do”, a whirling pop song with siren-like vocal bits, they leave their strongest impression, but they limit most of their tracks to one or two good ideas, leaning on the lo-fi drums and strings for readymade atmosphere. Ultimately, Made Into Itself’s appeal will likely hinge on how fond you are of stroking your chin and fantasizing about the 2007 Jetta.
Phillip Buchan - Splendid
Leaf - Made into itself delivers dark instrumental triphop sound to the light summer nights, and does it with style! Behind the project is Dallas based producer Steve Wick and the album has been published by Suspicious Records.
Strong beats, interesting samples and earie athmosphere is very pleasant hearing. Straight from the first song the album takes you on a night ride on a alone winding road. Leaf is the best kind of music for those night rides, at least if you don’t get scared by all the little cracks and hissling on the background. That’s because the album has been overrun by a kind of background noise effect with all the hissling and crackling of an old record player. This sometimes overused effect on triphop -albums does work thou, and doesn’t sound over-taped. Most of the instruments and samples are also beautifully hard on the edges, broken by a nice contrast of clean acoustic instruments like piano, cello and guitar.
The album has been talentfully divided by vocals, that give the extra little spice but don’t brake the wholeness. Althou’ the soundscapes are very different on each song, the tracks fit together very nicely. Tracks are mostly really short, under 3 minutes, but on this album it works perfectly. Sounds like you are listening a story, kind of an soundtrack for unreleased movie. Emotions racing from feat, to love and hate. Stylewise Leaf sounds bit like Massive Attack’s Mezzanine and some of Trickys work, but luckily Leaf stands on it’s own and doesn’t sound like a copy.
I recommend this album to all of you in for instrumental triphop and bit more experimental hiphop.
[Translated from Finnish] Janne Pirkola - Trip 404 . com