Light Green Leaves

Album Review

Light Green Leaves follows in the wake of Little Wings' ambitious "Wonder" trilogy. The "group" itself is actually just one person, Portland, OR-based Kyle Field, who enlists different musicians for each recording/performance (and has a penchant for playing at campgrounds and beaches and such). On his fourth long-player, he taps an alt-country vein that's heavier on the "alt" than the country. At times, his wispy voice sounds like that of the (seemingly) ageless, genreless Robert Wyatt ("Boom!"); at others — like the unusually titled "iii" — he sounds like a more upbeat Will Oldham (Palace Brothers, Bonnie Prince Billy), with whom he has toured. Sometimes, he even sounds like the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia circa American Beauty ("Fall Flood"), which should give some idea as to the "feel" of Light Green Leaves — much like that of a worn and faded old pair of blue jeans (and definitely not that expensive designer stuff). Interestingly, the release is also a trilogy of sorts: The cassette, LP, and CD editions all differ in that each is progressively more developed than the one before, with the CD representing the most finished version of this material. ~ Kathleen C. Fennessy, Rovi