The Leaf Lab

Beautiful Seizure is the debut album from Chicago trio volcano!, and it's an intense, exhilarating and immensely rewarding ride. What may at first sound chaotic and unplanned reveals itself on repeated listening as meticulously structured: rhythms gather, flicker, melt (down) and emerge as something different; splenetic episodes give way to passages of hymnal calm which in turn are shattered as language breaks down into strobe-like stuttering and is tugged back into line by Sam Scranton's insistent drumming; silvery shards of controlled static ride high above everything. Melodies are stretched to and beyond breaking point, Aaron With's guitar shifts between a ragged, feverish dissonance and bright spaciousness. There are no boundaries and no indulgences, nothing here that's hackneyed or extraneous.

This CD only release is a compilation of two acclaimed EPs (Invisible Soundtracks Volume I & II), together with four new tracks and several further incidental pieces by Richard Thomas. The Invisible Soundtracks series was launched in 1995, with a simple brief: contributors (who include both established and new artists) were asked to produce an evocative piece of music for an imaginary film, in whatever style the musician cared to choose. The resulting collection works effectively as a whole, open to the listener's own visual interpretation. This is not ambient music, it's atmospheric music to be listened to with the lights down low, suggesting images of the darkenened hulls of lost spaceships, cocktail bars on Pacific islands or imperial palaces in the Russian Steppes. Hiding behind the settee may or may not be necessary... Featuring The Sons Of Silence, Gescom, Mark Clifford and Mark Van Hoen.

Following 1997's Invisible Soundtracks: Macro 1, The Leaf Label continues its acclaimed IS series with a second compilation. Once again, the compilation features only exclusive tracks, specially commissioned for the project. The label invited artists from across a broad musical spectrum to contribute a piece of music that in some way evokes a cinematic image. The contributors, who include Patrick Pulsinger & Erdem Tunakan, DJ Spooky, To Rococo Rot, Si Begg, Laika, Fridge and Warren Defever from His Name Is Alive, have managed to conjure up tantalising images of distant realms: dark jungles, forgotten space wrecks and illicit sexual encounters. The soundtrack to the film of your dreams...

Lost For Words is the successor to the enormously popular Osmosis sampler from 1999, which ushered in The Leaf Label's second wave of artists, including Susumu Yokota, Eardrum, Gorodisch and 310. Lost For Words consolidated the reputation of a label that has grown exponentially since then, with the deserved success of Yokota and Dan Snaith, and worldwide critical acclaim for the likes of Murcof and Asa-Chang & Junray. Lost For Words gives you a bargain-priced opportunity to hear tracks from two years of Leaf album releases - Murcof, Asa-Chang & Junray, Boom Bip & Doseone and A Small Good Thing - as well as other highlights from the Leaf back catalogue, with offerings from Snaith, Susumu Yokota, Gorodisch and 310.

Released in 2004, Delivery Room followed on from 2002's Lost For Words and the Osmosis sampler from 1999. The release of the compilation coincided with the launch of The Leaf Label's first proper website. Both CD and website followed a 360?, room-based aesthetic and were designed and built by the Non-Format team. This sampler demonstrated how far the label had come, with an increasing focus on the middle ground between electronics and more traditional instrumentation.

Double CD retrospective compilation released to celebrate The Leaf Label's tenth anniversary. There's enough warmth, melody, playfulness and passion here to distinguish Leaf from its contemporaries. Hell, a lot of this stuff still sounds like nothing else. The label continues to evade classification and build on its enviable reputation, with an ear for a tune and an eye on a desirable artefact.

When Fernando Corona released Martes, his first album as Murcof, back in 2002, it was a bolt from the blue: a work of such clarity and strength of character that it became an instant genre classic. Utopía is a collection featuring sympathetic reworkings of tracks from Martes, the two tracks from 2003's exceptional Ulysses 12", both tracks from the Utopía Remixes 12" (April 2004) and two further previously unreleased Murcof tracks, 'Una' and 'Ultimatum'.