Biography
"It's like we started a brand new band," says Leaves' singer Arnar Gudjonsson. "We've taken the songs much further and it's developed into something much bigger and richer."
The Angela Test, Leaves second album, sounds like a quantum leap, too. The majestic arrangements, elemental beauty and soaring melodies that impressed on their epic debut are still there. But this time there's a new confidence, a spirit of adventure and an audacity that suggests a group that knows its time has come.
Leaves came sailing majestically out of Iceland in 2002 to earn across-the-board four star reviews for their debut, Breathe, and were promptly dubbed 'the new Radiohead' by NME. Then, after a smattering of acclaimed festival appearances, a famous gig at which Coldplay's Chris Martin turned up to check them out and the support slot on a Doves tour, they seemed to disappear. Their label B-Unique was bought by Warners, who didn't know what to do with Leaves, leaving them blowing in the wind.
"We'd been thrown into the music business and then it spat us out again. But it was actually the best thing that could have happened to the band," says Arnar G. "We made the first record too quickly," reckons bassist Hallur Hallson. "We'd only just formed and we hadn't had time to develop. The break gave us the chance to focus and the the space to work out the sound we wanted."
At times it was a struggle. Back in Iceland with young families to support, several of them took day jobs and the band underwent a major line-up change in April 2003. To the core trio of childhood friends Arnar G, Hallur and guitarist Arnar Olafsson (known as Arnar O), were added keyboard player Andri Asgrimsson and drummer Noi Einarsson.
"I'd actually been a member of the original line-up, joined another band and then came back," reveals Andri. "Leaves has always been about old friends. We've all known each other since we were six years old." Meanwhile, drummer Noi brought something entirely new to the table, adding his love of Aphex Twin and modern electronica to the band's classic influences, ranging from Pink Floyd to the Beach Boys via psychedelic-period Beatles.
Equally critical to their development was the acquisition of their own studio, about 100 yards from Reykjavik's most famous landmark, the 'peace house' where Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev met in 1986 for the momentous summit that paved the way for the end of the cold war.
The studio gave them the opportunity to experiment and grow. "That's what turned us into a band rather than just a bunch of guys playing my songs." Arnar G says. "Everything on the new record is credited as a band composition because the whole group contributed to building up the tracks layer-by-layer until we felt we'd cracked them."
After the rush in which the first album had been recorded, working without any pressure paid dividends and the new material began to develop depths and nuances that Breathe had only hinted at. "We had a lot of songs we threw away and we jumped over a whole record to get to this one," Hallur explains. "There's an album's worth of songs we never recorded because it would have sounded too much like the first record."
The return of Andri also took the lyric writing into new realms. "It's a very romantic, dreamy atmosphere I try to evoke," he explains. "It's usually something that's said in the rehearsal room that sparks off a lyric. Perhaps it's just a word or a phrase. It can be very spontaneous. Then we discuss what we want and find a plot or a theme that reflects the mood of the music."
Unlike compatriots Sigur Ros, Leaves have always sung in English. "It never occurred to me to sing in anything else," says Arnar G. "All my favourite music is sung in English. It's the language of rock'n'roll, although I think the subject matter is very Icelandic."
Leaves happily embraced all the flattering comparisons that were tossed around at the time of their first record, with the names of Radiohead, Coldplay and Elbow particularly to the fore. On The Angela Test, they feel they've drawn on a wider palette, including an obvious debt to the harmonies of the Beach Boys and the sonic grandeur of Pink Floyd. But such influences are inevitably filtered, refracted and then refocused via their own experience and environment.
"Iceland is the land of midnight sun and the land of darkness at noon and that's reflected in the music," Hallur says. "It's not intentional or knowing. But in some way it's there. The darkness and the light influences us. We live on an island and it's a very isolated existence with a population of just 300,000 people. It's a weird place and that definitely affects the music."
After signing to Island, producer Marius de Vries (Madonna/ Massive Attack/ Björk) flew to Reykjavik and joined the band in the studio. "We'd been working on the record a long time and he came in to add the final touch," Arnar G explains. "He made some really useful suggestions and gave us confidence that we'd got it right because a lot of tracks he just said, 'That's great. Don't change it."
The sheer sonic scope of the songs on The Angela Test is at times breathtaking. The widescreen psychedelia of Shakma is the band's tribute to early Pink Floyd, with an almost architectural grandeur in its symmetry. "It's a unique song for us. It was like writing a symphony. You start with a theme and then you take it in different directions and develop different movements," says Arnar G, who once trained as an opera singer and confesses to a love of the great Russian composers.
The cold fire of The Spell has a more Germanic influence. "Arnar had the melody but we were struggling with the song for weeks in the studio," Hallur recalls. "We had the rhythm and bass line as well, but it needed something different," Andri adds. "Then Kraftwerk were playing here in Iceland. The entire band went to the gig and after that we went back to the studio and the song just fitted into place."
Good Enough is Leaves' response to those who tell them that their dark, brooding epics are all well and good but they should cheer up a bit. "There aren't many upbeat numbers on the record and that's the one," Hallur says. "It's our rock'n'roll song."
The Angela Test is "our idea of what a Russian Beach Boys might sound like," according to Arnar G. It also boasts some of the album's most intriguing and allegorical lyrics . "It's a mystical story about an angel lost in the wasteland," Andri explains. "Then man finds this beautiful creature and cages her. Magic and mysticism are very strong elements in Icelandic culture. People still talk about it and believe in it."
The extended epic Should Have Seen It All started life as a simple chord progression that Arnar G came up with on the guitar. Then the band took over and twisted the song into new and more complex shapes. The explosion heard at the end is the sound of builders dynamiting the underground rock in the lot adjacent to the band's studio, where a new car park was being constructed. "We spent a whole day recording the explosions," Hallur recalls. "It made the entire studio shake and we wanted to feel that on the track. It's huge. It's like God playing the drums."
Yet where the inspiration for their transcendent soundscapes comes from, even the band themselves aren't quite sure. "I don't necessarily feel we write the songs at all," Arnar G admits. "It's like you have an antenna to this place where music comes from. You have to tune in and some people have better connections than others."
The Angela Test suggests Leaves must be hot-wired straight into the mainline.
Further information: Amanda Freeman at Sainted PR on 020 8962 5700 or email amanda@saintedpr.com
