Cinematic and richly detailed, Leaving Laurel set a love story to downtempo electronica with touches of ambient on our lives entwined.
Release date: January 9, 2026 | Anjunadeep | Facebook | Instagram | Bandcamp
This time of year is the doldrums. The holidays are over, and we return to the monotony of labor and sleep amidst the coldest months of the year. All of the anxiety and excitement of the last few months leaves us feeling a little lackluster, and personally, there isn’t a single holiday I enjoy until Halloween. For years, this time of year has been occupied with black metal or something else that feels icy and grim to match the weather and moods of the early months. This year, however, I am starting things off on a much warmer note. We are fucking cozymaxxing over here, at least for now. I also upgraded my mobile listening setup over the holidays, so maybe I am just craving as much spacious and interesting sounds as I can get. Whatever the case, Leaving Laurel have entered the rotation with a new album titled our lives entwined.
Leaving Laurel is Canadian producer Gordon Huntley‘s chill, downtempo electronic project, but the story is much richer than that. Initially, in 2019, Huntley bonded with friend and fellow musician Pierce Fulton over melodic and introspective electronica. The duo recorded some songs together in Laurel Canyon and released their first album. Tragically, Pierce Fulton passed away shortly after, and after time to process and contemplate, Huntley and Pierce’s brother, Griff Fulton, continued the project with a second album that helped process their collective grief, as well as an EP. Now, Huntley is flying solo as Leaving Laurel for their third full-length, our lives entwined.
This album continues the warm, downtempo, and chilltronica vibes of the previous Leaving Laurel projects, but unlike 2023’s when the quiet comes, there is no grief or mourning here. Instead, our lives entwined seeks to musically tell a love story, to replicate the journey of falling in love. The result is a warm and welcoming album that is as easy to get lost in as it is to get lost with. That is, this collection of songs can easily be the background soundtrack to a spring drive at sunset. The rhythms move in a pace that can easily accompany any task that requires attention, but the switches and melodies continue to pull you back in. Deeper listening reveals a concert of subtleties, little background nuances that layer into a rich atmosphere.
Fittingly, the album opens with the sounds of a chilling wind and muted drums that could be footsteps in thick snow or perhaps the rhythmic pulse of windshield wipers on “and the storm started”. Perhaps these moments are the grey-sounding loneliness of the soon-to-be lovers. As the song progresses, the drum tones shift into a clearer focus and more and more glimmering layers of synths begin to stack onto the previously murky sounds, like that love-at-first sight moment in an indie romcom movie, what was once grey is now colorful and vibrant. This creates a bit of a slow burn that moves nicely into “her certain uncertainty”, one of the standout tracks on the album. This song carries echoes of dub and UK garage with its reverb and rimshot snares, but the tender melody of warm saw-wave synths with just a touch of distortion offer more rays of sunshine that cut through the dark alleys of artists like Burial. The title suggests doubt, but this song is confident and cinematic and an earworm on top of that.
“that feeling from before” and “i: off the path” offer more uncertainty and contemplative moods, with the latter being more of an ambient track. This creates a brief lull in the album’s energy, though both maintain Huntley’s attention to detail and penchant for evolving soundscapes. “ii: into the night” feels closer to a club song, its beat driving deeper bass lines while flourishes of synths burble and swing through the fog machine’s breath. These slow building yet danceable tensions carry the rest of the album to the closing title track, which contends with “her certain uncertainty” for my favorite song on our lives entwined. This song really does have all of the sensation of a cinematic climax, two lovers racing through an airport to each others’ arms after having been separated due to some misunderstanding as they learn to accept their flaws and persevere into the final moments of static and the soft voice of a child close out the story. There is a coda, of sorts, as three songs have time edited versions for DJs, or if you simply don’t want the calm and hypnotic vibes to end.
Leaving Laurel scratch an itch on our lives entwined. While I am not one for storybook romance or even the longing for some all-encompassing love, I do appreciate the deep feelings these things can conjure, and sometimes art can put me in that kind of sentimental mood. This album doesn’t quite do that for me, but it puts in a solid effort. For what these songs may lack in tugs at my heartstrings, they makes up for it by being satisfyingly intricate and an interesting listen, simultaneously good for deep headphone listening and for setting a chill mood around the house. Huntley clearly has a lot of love and care for this project, and knowing that it stems from a lot of deep feelings makes it all the more endearing. our lives entwined is a warm blanket of an album to help get us through these dark, cold days.
