Sing Leaf - Not Earth (2020) Hi-Res

Determining where music comes from can be a tricky business, and for Sing Leaf’s David Como Not Earth emerges from a “Disney, sci-fi, alien landscape vision.” You have to leave your preconceptions at the door and go along for the ride. Which certainly takes this somewhat beyond the idea of traditional folk music. Yet, as Como suggests, “Music for me has never been about crafting the best sounding song, or even the most appealing song, it’s more about honoring the spark.”

Entering the framework of Not Earth, Easy On You initially burbles along with strange, gentle noises before the guitar and vocals enter over an acoustic guitar, “Darkness leading into the light / The underwater time of night / Downstairs they’re fighting in Apartment 2 / I’ll make it easy, easy on you.” This is the kind of simple love song that could appear almost anywhere, yet it offers a gentle way into entering this dimensional shift.

Remarkably Little Magic opens up with a similar melody but the changes in instrumentation and a lead vocal by Como, instead of the opener’s Pat Bramm, make all the difference. The guitar is more forceful, blending with the synthesizer to create something different, yet still in the same vein. Lyrically it plays like a bit of a musical response, “Stay by my side, even just for the night / You know I never want to die.”

If there is a point in the proceedings where things go slightly off the rails it would be on Honeyeater. The track tends to wander aimlessly in deserts of the mind before, finally, coming into focus a bit. Far more successful, Magnetic gently nods toward a keyboard-laden vision of romance from Sing Leaf. In places the song almost feels like it’s floating like an untethered astronaut.

The sunny pop sounds of Forever Green came to David fully formed while on a road trip. “I was looking out the window and I just started receiving the song. Within minutes it was there, completely. Where did it come from? Why did it come to me? You can’t think about it or ask about it, you just submit to it or you lose the song.”

The bass line to Sunshine sounds decidedly downbeat, but a keyboard melody and a guitar sounding more like a Japanese or Chinese stringed instrument takes the song off in a new direction. With the help of a keyboard track, by the song’s end, it has become a distant cousin to Talking Heads’ This Must Be the Place.

The otherworldly, Out of the Dream ties the album together, focusing a number of instruments including gamelan bells and steel drums that send this piece into an orbital groove. Taken as a whole, Sing Leaf’s Not Earth holds promise for other worlds. It’s up to us to find them.