falling from the sun

The Album Leaf did a free show at the Berkeley Art Museum tonight that was technically for Cal students only, but I snuck in under the auspices of KALX (who had helped promote the show).  Jimmy LaValle and company set up right in front of Thom Faulders's giant undulating orange BAMscape sculpture in the central atrium, and the audience kicked off their shoes and lounged on and amongst its curves while fairy lights twinkled from the gallery balconies.  The musicians performed their post-rock ambient tunes with extended instrumental sections augmented by a lovely string section and trumpet while abstracted light projections played on the museum's brutalist concrete walls behind them and high above their heads.  Sometimes LaValle's music edges dangerously close to cheesy, but in that setting tonight and with those acoustics it just felt perfectly chill.