New Music: The Album Leaf x Aisha Badru – Fight or Flight

The ambient, exploratory electronica of The Album Leaf and the jazzy vocals Aisha Badru are a divine match on Fight or Flight.

The Album Leaf – musician/producer Jimmy LaValle – delves into the atmospheric, shimmering tones of downtempo and trip-hop on Fight or Flight, the arrangement having a liquid quality as it flows around Badru’s smoky vocal performance.

Together, The Album Leaf and Aisha Badru bring to the listener a sonic and emotional terrain that has a familiar feel and texture to Röyksopp’s Profound Mysteries. There’s a greater emphasis on the song as a moment of art in time, making the lyrics an essential part of the track, the repeated references to circles finding a counterweight in the unending movement of to the vocals and multiple rhythms in the arrangement.

“This song was actually created back in 2021. I had written the original track during the ‘Future Falling’ sessions, and during that long stretch of COVID isolation, I began exploring collaborations on songs that had space for a vocalist.”

“Nettwerk connected me with Aisha Badru, who wrote and recorded her vocals remotely. She brought a deeply internal, unguarded emotional weight to the track, capturing the anxiety of that time, the sense of movement driven by restlessness rather than freedom, and the feeling of trying to outrun something that keeps circling back.”

“Even though we weren’t in the same room, her voice sits at the heart of the song, carrying both tension and vulnerability. James McAlister also contributed percussion remotely, giving the track a subtle human pulse beneath the haze. The entire song came together from a distance, which somehow made it feel even more intimate, living in that space between urgency and stillness.”

Fight or Flight can be streamed on Bandcamp and Spotify, and the collaboration is leading up to a new album later this year. For news on that, follow The Album Leaf on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok.