can we take the next hour and talk about me?

Dear loyal readers, I am back from the cottage and this blog is now back in business! The Canada Day weekend was fun even though the weather was not all that great: rainy, cloudy, and gloomy for most parts. Nonetheless, I still managed to get a sunburn during those short sunny cloudless hours. The highlight for me was on Saturday when I woke up at around 5:15 am to stroll around the "wild" and sat at the end of the dock alone to watch the sunrise: it was very calming and peaceful! I managed to take a few pictures before my camera ran out of batteries; you can check those out, along with a bunch of random and pointless pictures here.

The soundtrack for my Canada Day long weekend consisted of Sigur Rós, Patrick Wolf, Broken Social Scene, and The Album Leaf. If you are a regular visitor of this blog, you are most likely sick of reading about the first three; on the contrary, I don't think I have ever mentioned The Album Leaf on this blog. I am only familiar with The Album Leaf's 2004 release, In A Safe Place, which was the record I listened to (a lot) over the weekend. Perhaps one of the reasons I listened to In A Safe Place so many times was because it has this nature/earthy feel, making it a perfect soundtrack when one's out in the cottage country. For those of you who have never heard of The Album Leaf, it is essentially an all-instrumental-solo-project by Jimmy LaValle. Despite the all-instrumental part, In A Safe Place actually features three vocal tracks: "On Your Own", "Over The Pond", and "Eastern Glow". In fact, "Over The Pond" features the voice of Jónsi from Sigur Rós! Other highlights include "Thule", "Twentytwofourteen", "The Outer Banks", and "Streamside". Unlike many instrumental albums which sound forced and self-centered, Jimmy LaValle does not try to showoff how fast and complex he can play different musical instrumentals, nor does he feature long improvise guitar solos in his songs. In A Safe Place simply contains beautiful natural music.

Thule
On Your Way [super-wicked-cool song]
Twentytwofourteen
The Outer Banks [wicked-cool song]
Over The Pond [wicked-cool song]
Streamside
Eastern Glow
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buy In A Safe Place here