Purchase includes the entire 98 track compilation. Access high-quality download in bonus materials as WAV and MP3. Download available in 24-bit/44.1kHz.

1. Celia Hollander & Photay - Live at LTMOITDUAT 10.14.23 04:45
2. Laraaji - Joyous Dance '82 06:20
3. Jon Makes Beats - The Mountain 03:14
4. Sharada Shashidhar / Caleb Buchanan - Ghostly 02:30
5. Baths & Rachika Nayar - Dried Apricot 03:14
6. More Eaze - Point Dume 03:10
7. Samantha Urbani - Cafe 101 01:50
8. V.C.R - Charlene's Mantra 02:12
9. Surya Botofasina - Our Cottage To Across The Stream (Carlos Niño & Friends Remix featuring Steve Spacek with Miles Spilsbury, Dntel, and J Rocc) 03:35
10. Total Blue - Astral Mud 04:24
11. John Carroll Kirby - Nucleo (Live) featuring Logan Hone, Benny Bock, John Paul Maramba, Tamir Barzilay 15:22
12. Spencer Zahn, Dave Scalia, Jon Natchez - Peaches & Apricots 04:19
13. Caural - Radiant Everything 03:37
14. Sam Wilkes - Culebra 03:30
15. Samiyam - Water 04:10
16. Devonwho - Pulse 02:08
17. Diego Gaeta - Earthseed 02:00
18. Nina Keith - Come Back Different (Live At Zorthian Ranch) 05:24
19. Julia Holter - Turn The Light On (Live at the Leaving Records 10-Year Anniversary) 04:23
20. Nite Jewel - Cry In Time (Demo) 03:28
21. Eddie Chacon - Fate 02:55
22. Cool Maritime - Freshet 06:16
23. MIZU - The Course Of Empire 15:29
24. Arushi Jain - California 06:43
25. Ahnnu - Red05 03:13
26. Yama Fela Harmon Koh & Grandfather. - On The Other Side Of Fear And Complacency 05:07
27. The Growth Eternal - Fire From The Palisades 01:28
28. Peaking Lights - For Real 08:32
29. Brijean - Strange Times (Live) 11:34
30. Cole Pulice - A Prayer In My Pocket 03:43
31. dak - Fresh Sprouts 04:25
32. Daedelus - Making The Beat Scene 01:48
33. Ryan York - Processional 02:42
34. Glia - Gaal RDM 01:37
35. Botany - Diode Congregation 02:54
36. Asa Tone & Ariel Kalma - A Gentle Upward Spiral 04:04
37. Mndsgn - Her Radiance Was Uncanny 07:27
38. Kutmah - Ease Your Mind 03:02
39. Cafe Ale - 60 W Palm 04:32
40. Rhys Langston & EYEDRESS - Winding In The Light (I Saw You Last Night) 02:38
41. Odd Nosdam x Trance Farmers - The Future's a Straightaway 02:08
42. Automatic - Mq9 (demo) 04:02
43. Toucan - Stay 02:43
44. Kevin Haskins - These Boots Are Made For Walking '91 03:22
45. Luke Schneider - Honeydrip 02:05
46. Matt Baldwin - Naiad 05:52
47. Lael Neale - How To Be Human 02:19
48. Diatom Deli - God Is Change 04:44
49. Diva & The Pearly Gates - Heartbeat (demo) 02:57
50. Brin - Lonely 02:38
51. yuk. - Hopeblanket 04:10
52. Droopy Eye - imgofmyslf,3d 02:03
53. Nate Mercereau - Juniper's Theme (Live in Twentynine Palms 121524) - Excerpt, with Aaron Shaw and Andres Renteria 04:13
54. Ohma - Live at LTMOITDUAT 10.14.23 04:26
55. Alia - Lullaby For A Sea Nymph 01:55
56. Emily Sprague - Symbiosis 06:23
57. Fumitake Tamura - Ma to Sa 04:05
58. Xyla - Adjust 04:56
59. Anenon - Matters Of Time 04:00
60. Chakram featuring Miguel Atwood-Ferguson - Mirror Image Neurons 02:50
61. Nailah Hunter - Rest Here (demo) 01:57
62. Def Sound - I Been (Contour Remix) 04:14
63. Tru - Skyscrapers 02:10
64. EMV - On The One Hand 02:46
65. Sweatson Klank - Find Our Way Back (Altadena) 03:09
66. Steve Roach - FOR THE ANGELS 08:41
67. Aisha Vaughan - Forever Dreaming 03:45
68. White Magic - Moon 04:52
69. Marine Eyes - Centuries 03:57
70. Raays + Andrew CS - Rain In Los Angeles 04:58
71. Tehn - averroes ii (antimatter) 03:56
72. Dani Derks - Slopes 03:21
73. David Moses x Tristan de Liege - Contour 02:45
74. Kyle Parker & Alex Twomey - Numbers 03:27
75. Hundred Waters - Pliocene 02:45
76. Paul Livingstone featuring Partho Sarothy - Bear Heart 03:57
77. Campus Christy featuring Piya Malik - Lezte Nachte 04:18
78. Maylee Todd - Be A Dreamer 02:18
79. M.A. Tiesenga - A Clearing 02:40
80. Guy Blakeslee - Reprieve 13:06
81. Earthtones with Shelley Burgon - Beyond Beyond 08:37
82. Black Taffy - Setting Sun Shines Gold 05:08
83. Kenny Segal - Sablefish 02:27
84. Reggie Watts - Rondo In E Flat (Live at LTMOITDUAT 2.4.22) 04:04
85. Muwosi & Lionmilk - The Rite Way 05:20
86. 3V3RY1 - Sno 01:25
87. Aisha Mars - Song For My Father 03:12
88. Creme - Tear Drop 01:24
89. MoRuf - Shining Like Jewels (demo) 01:48
90. Vinyl Williams - Sunlight 03:50
91. tstewart - Splendid 03:06
92. Carlos Niño & Friends - Tribute to Ahmad, Dilla and Dove (featuring Nate Mercereau, Devin Daniels, Photay, and V.C.R) 04:10
93. KMRU - Visions 03:00
94. Tate EC - Wings 02:45
95. Superposition - Glimmer 04:51
96. N Kramer - What Now? 04:27
97. Matthewdavid - Winter Trip Hop 04:08
98. André 3000 - "This is Where my room used to be." (featuring Carlos Niño, Alex Cline, and Pablo Calogero) 08:45

about
Everything has changed, and it is changing still. The early days of 2025 (an already baleful year, vis-a-vis America’s darkening political horizon) have wrought heretofore unimaginable destruction in the land we now call Los Angeles. The wildfires that began on the morning of Tuesday, January 7th—and which are still raging—are, in scope and intensity, unlike any other disaster, natural or manmade, in the city’s living memory. Thousands of homes destroyed. Twenty four lives lost at the time of writing (that number will almost certainly rise), and innumerable lives forever altered. The devastation arrived suddenly, and has persisted over the course of a punishing and surreal week.

We rise in the morning after not sleeping. We check the air quality. We check the fires’ progress on the same app we’ve all installed (the City’s alert system keeps misfiring). We add another photo to the go bag. We wonder what the fuck the phrase “8% containment actually means,” or what distinguishes “ready” from “set” when the evacuation warnings are fired off within mere minutes of one another. And what happens when warnings turn to orders. We evacuate. If we have time, we walk through our homes, recording each room, narrating all our possessions, for “insurance purposes.” If we don’t have time we just go. We arrive somewhere…safe…safer? We exhale. Another alert. We evacuate again. Hadn’t even unzipped the go bag. We text. We call. They’re not answering. They’re probably fine but why aren’t they answering. Probably the same reason you’re not answering. There’s no time and you can’t think. Your phone is exploding. Relatives and friends are watching the news. “How close are you?” You are too close. You are close even if you’re not close because the fires keep starting.” Kenneth.” “Sunset.” The winds keep shifting. The cars are all parked in the road and all the keys are gone. It is like a nightmare. You can’t get away. It is here and it is everywhere. And for all too many this agonizing cycle keeps on repeating after the unthinkable has already occurred: The loss of home.

The unfoldingness of this event is hard to articulate. Having experienced unprecedented rainfall the previous winter, and unprecedentedly dry conditions in the months since, the region is, at present, uniquely vulnerable to catastrophic fires. The Eaton and Palisades Fires, already estimated to be the two most destructive fires in the City’s history, are slowly being contained, but the Santa Ana winds are expected to return. With them, more fear and uncertainty. We pray for rain in a desperate and ancient way.

Everyone is exhausted, enraged (the usual suspects are at best shrugging and at worst sewing division; the profiteers are already salivating), to varying degrees stunned by loss and sick with grief, and still, somehow, mustering the courage and energy to act collectively, to contribute, however they might, towards the preservation of life.

We are stuck between (propelled by?) devastation and action. The impulse to simply break down, and the knowledge that there is tremendous work to be done, now and in the future. To preserve what remains, and to regain what we’ve lost.

The individuals and communities affected in this moment are numerous and varied, but it is the case that Los Angeles’s musical community has been absolutely upended. The Palisades fire, with its reach into older parts of Malibu and Topanga Canyon, and the Eaton fire, in its virtual erasure of Altadena, have affected some of the only areas in Los Angeles where working musicians could live with a modicum of comfort—Though, as we are all too aware in this moment, precarity has always been part of the bargain here.

A brief word on Altadena in particular: In recent years, Altadena has become a rich and vibrant hub for artists of all kinds. Nestled below the San Gabriel mountains, the region’s demography shifted in the latter half of the twentieth century—due in large part to a history of redlining, that practice’s legal cessation, and subsequent white flight—to become a thriving Black enclave within Los Angeles. Former residents include no less than Octavia Butler (whose Parable of the Sower rings now as terribly prophetic) and Sydney Poitier. That Altadena has remained one of the few areas within Los Angeles where home ownership is feasible for working families and artists of all stripes is no coincidence. Countless generational homes and historic Black-owned businesses have been destroyed. Among the diverse institutions confirmed to have been lost at the time of writing are Madlib’s estate, the Theosophical Society’s archives, and the altar of kitsch and wholesomeness that was The Bunny Museum.

Leaving Records in particular has deep roots in Altadena. Label founder MatthewDavid cut his teeth printing J cards at a home operation in the neighborhood, and countless Leaving artists reside in the area. Many of these artists have either definitively lost their homes, or are currently waiting to learn their fate. The path to rebuilding (how long it will take, what it will cost, whether it is even feasible) remains terribly unclear.

But, in the spirit of doing what we can, and doing what we do best, Leaving has pulled out all the proverbial stops to release a benefit compilation consisting of affiliated artists and supporters far and wide (many of whom have indeed lost everything). Seeking to supplement the numerous GoFundMes and the profound, often harrowing acts of mutual aid that are currently buoying recovery efforts, and in lieu of donating to a third party organization, all proceeds will be donated directly to impacted individuals. 50% will be meticulously, manually allocated to Los Angeles artists and music colleagues in need, as equitably as possible. We will be referencing existing music community aid spreadsheets / documents already circulating, alongside a succinct internal list of those affected in our immediate community. The other 50% of funds will be allocated to displaced Black families and community impacted by the fires, again, as equitably as possible.

Personal and collective healing, ecological recuperation, spiritual transcendence, radical communality — these concerns are woven into Leaving’s roster and catalog. Never in the label’s history has it been so called upon to celebrate and implement these principles. Though we may not even know what “hope” constitutes yet, we know we’ve got it somewhere. We know it’s in solidarity, and we know it’s in the music.

-Emmett Shoemaker for Leaving Records, January 13, 2025, ~10:30pm
credits
released January 17, 2025

curated compiled and mastered by Matthewdavid for Leaving Records
design by Studio Ampersands -> ampersands.space
8mm stills by Erren Franklin @errenfranklinfilms
fiscal sponsorship from dublab
guidance and counsel from Carlos Niño

license
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