Milieu - Leaves Painted Purple (2013) Lossless

2009's ambient album Leaves Painted Purple came and went fairly quickly, as many Milieu releases go, but it always left a positive mark in my mind. I recorded it live during a very hot summer, between sessions for Analog Botany material. Coppice Halifax was fast becoming my main project, but Leaves was a nice reminder that Milieu was still around for serious consideration. After both a CD-R and cassette version of Leaves went out of print, I always knew I would someday revisit the material again, so here it is now. Remastered from the original fourtrack tapes, and augmented with a few like-minded pieces to really form a nice expansion on the original idea. The "Appendage" track was a cassette-only exclusive piece for the tape version of Leaves, while "Delphine" and "Battle Hymn" were previously issued on the incredibly limited (and also out of print) split album with Turquoise Turtles. "Translucent Forestation" was released as its own single that same year, and "The Space Between" and "Sedentary Lifestyles" both appeared much later on the Bedroom Waves split cassette with Solitary Nature, although they fit perfectly with the rest of the content here.

As I sit here now, in the midst of 2013's beautiful Autumn season, four years later...this album still resonates with me, as do the accompanying pieces. There's a strain of sadness in the very pretty organ melodies, layered deep beneath the warm guitar tones, and I think this material will be well met during the colder months approaching.