The Leaf Library The World Is A Bell

Double pink vinyl in reverse board sleeve. For fans of Insides, Stereolab, Low, Bark Psychosis, Yo La Tengo, Seefeel, Julia Holter. The record is an ambitious and expansive update of their warm, hypnotic drone-pop encompassing gently pulsing electronics, chiming guitars, minimalist piano, acoustic and synthesised drones, noise, improv and intricate brass and string arrangements, all in the service of the band's most assured and experimental songwriting yet. Two years in the making it features guest contributions from (amongst others) celebrated singer Ed Dowie, noise group Far Rainbow, fellow space-pop travellers Firestations and the string quartet Iskra Strings. It draws on all aspects of the band's work so far, from indie guitar pop to ambient atmospherics, via surging rhythms and layered, melancholic vocals. This is the band's second album and the official follow up to 2015's debut Daylight Versions (5* The Guardian). It begins with 'In Doors And Out Through Windows', a minimal piano and vibraphone incantation in 7/4, with shades of Dot and Loops-era Stereolab, their summery strum replaced here with twilit, unsettling repetition and melancholy brass swells. First single 'Hissing Waves' is the most pop the band have ever sounded, its skipping Insides-esque electronics and looping verses pulling the listener back to daylight and the disorienting "transparent spaces" of the city. 'Patience' (featuring guest vocals by Ed Dowie) is the closest the band come to the sound of 'Daylight Versions', cresting on waves of guitars and an insistent synth arpeggio. Elsewhere we find the title track's pointillist strings (arranged by the band's saxophonist Daniel Fordham), hypnotic vocal rituals on noise/improv detour 'Bodies Carried Off By Bees' (featuring Far Rainbow) and the Yo La Tengo-meet-Section 25 repetitions of 'An Endless', its bright guitar arpeggios and billowing synths unfurling across ten minutes of glorious repetition. Titled after a Johann Wolfgang von Goethe quote ("The world is a bell that is cracke...