NEWS ARCHIVE FOR JULY 2015
Polar Bear and James Holden in London
Published 10 July 2015 by BP


Polar Bear have just announced a mouth-watering co-headline show with modular synth wizard James Holden. It takes place at Electric Brixton on Sunday November 15. Get your tickets here if you know what’s good for you.

Before that there are a number of festival appearances including Latitude and Tramlines and a tour of the Low Countries in October. You can find details of these on our live page.

Bassist Tom Herbert has put together a mixtape for Irish website Fractured Air. While you wait for Polar Bear to roll into town, you can pass the time by listening to it here.

You should also check the long awaited video for recent single Dont Let The Feeling Go on Youtube and Vimeo.

@polarbear_uk
@polarbearseb
facebook.com/sebastianrochford
polarbearmusic.com
theleaflabel.com/polarbear
youtube.com/PolarBearSeb

Leaf At Festivals
Published 13 July 2015 by BP


Festival season is upon us and we suggest you make every effort to soundtrack your summer in the best possible way. To aid you in you in your quest, here is a comprehensive list of Leaf artists doing festival things in festival places.

MATTHEW BOURNE
Mon 3 Aug 2015 with Tipping Point, Manchester Jazz Festival, Manchester, UK
Sun 20 Sep 2015 with Tipping Point, Lancaster Jazz Festival, Lancaster, UK

MELT YOURSELF DOWN
Sat 25 Jul 2015 Cross The Tracks, Edinburgh, UK
Sat 1 Aug 2015 Kendal Calling, Kendal, UK
Sun 30 Aug 2015 Shambala Festival, Northamptonshire, UK

MURCOF
Sat 29 Aug 2015 Les Digitales Festival, Bern, SWITZERLAND
Sun 30 Aug 2015 Les Digitales Festival, Neuchatel, SWITZERLAND

POLAR BEAR
Fri 17 Jul 2015 Latitude Festival, Southwold, UK
Sat 25 Jul 2015 Tramlines Festival, Sheffield, UK
Sat 29 Aug 2015 Aberjazz, Theatr Gwaun, Fishguard, UK
Sat 5 Sep 2015 Into The Great Wide Open, Vlieland, NETHERLANDS

WILDBIRDS & PEACEDRUMS
Thu 13 Aug 2015 Way Out West, Gothenburg, SWEDEN
Sat 29 Aug 2015 By The Lake Festival, Berlin, GERMANY

Susumu Yokota RIP
Published 14 July 2015 by Tony Morley


We have just received the news that Susumu Yokota has passed away at the cruelly young age of 54 after a long period of illness. We understand that he died in late March, although his family has only just released the news.

We released six of Yokota’s albums over a period of four years (1999-2002), including three that have come to be considered classics of ambient music: Sakura, Grinning Cat and The Boy And The Tree. Those records helped put us on the map, and are still some of the best selling releases in The Leaf Label’s 20 year history. Their word-of-mouth success was made all the more remarkable by the fact that Yokota barely promoted them, visiting Europe to play live just once in the entire period we worked with him. Yokota returned the compliment by releasing a personally selected compilation of Leaf releases on his own Skintone label (Leaf Compilation, 2001). My personal favourite of his albums was the first we released, Image 1983-1998, a collection of delicate, otherworldly archive recordings.

As well as his ambient work, Yokota was respected for his house and techno music, with releases stretching back to 1993.

I only met Yokota three times, twice in the UK and a third time when I visited Japan in 2001. Yokota drove me (sometimes at alarming speed) through the endless sprawl of Tokyo and Yokohama to the tranquil city of Kamakura, where we visited ancient Buddhist and Shinto shrines and an extraordinary vegetarian restaurant (a rarity in Japan) that only served variants of tofu (it tasted immeasurably better than that sounds). Later we visited an onsen (hot spring baths), a real Japanese treat. Though he spoke very little English, he was always a charming and thoughtful companion. A sign on a harbour wall in Japanese and English we saw on the trip inspired the title of a Leaf compilation: "Watch for tsunami when you feel earth quake”, an instruction that would haunt me years later.

Tony Morley
July 14 2015

A tribute to Susumu Yokota
Published 23 July 2015 by DM

As a tribute to Susumu Yokota, a much loved friend and colleague who passed away in March 2015, The Leaf Label and Lo Recordings have joined forces to release My Energy, a 6 track EP featuring selected highlights from Yokota’s varied and much acclaimed back catalogue, most of which were originally released on his own Skintone label. The EP is available now on Bandcamp as a ‘Pay What You Want’ release with all proceeds going to Animal Refuge Kansai. Yokota was a lifelong animal lover, and the charity was chosen at his family’s request.

DOWNLOAD MY ENERGY EP HERE

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