As the sun rose over the misty Icelandic landscape, the four half-human, half-elf minstrel-warriors known as Sigur Rós emerged from their craggy volcanic fortress. Poised at the edge of a crater, they gazed at the panorama of boiling mud pools and steaming hot springs, rolling emerald hills, and glacier-fed waterfalls below. Turning to one of the others, the leader, Jónsi Birgisson, cooed in his strange, high-pitched, Hopelandish tongue, "We must seek out The One and bring him back here so that he, too, may transform his music into the essence of pure magic."

With that, they flew through the clouds to San Diego, where they spotted Jimmy LaValle toiling away on a computer in his bedroom, struggling to craft ambient beats and textures for the next disc under his solo moniker, the Album Leaf. As they gently touched down in his apartment, LaValle was awed by their beguiling otherworldliness. Smiling, Jónsi whisked him away to the outskirts of Reykjavik and sprinkled the blank CD-R in LaValle's hand with faerie dust. When Jimmy awoke from his heavenly slumber, he was back in his California bedroom with a finished album, fittingly titled In a Safe Place, in his trembling grasp.

Or maybe that's not exactly how things went.

"Yeah, I think the whole Iceland-slash-Sigur Rós collaboration thing for this album might have gotten a little overblown in the press," LaValle laughs. "I mean, those guys are my friends just as much as the people I hang with in San Diego--it's the same thing. Journalists have been trying to push the starstruck angle but it's just like, we hang out, we're friends. And about doing the album in Iceland, I guess not a lot of people have been there but they've heard all kinds of stuff about it, so there's just a lot of intrigue about that place in this day and age."

The real genesis of LaValle's camaraderie with Sigur Rós, which led to working with them on In a Safe Place--the third full-length from the Album Leaf and first since 2001--goes back three years, when Sigur Rós frontman Birgisson picked up an Album Leaf disc in a local record shop after a clerk suggested he'd probably dig the moody, gauzy, Eno-esque instrumentals. Birgisson loved it, and when it came time for his band to tour the U.S., he rang up LaValle--who'd never heard a Sigur Rós song before--and asked him to open for them. He agreed, and out on the road they instantly hit it off. LaValle often sat in with Sigur Rós onstage, and when they toured Europe together the following year, members of Sigur Rós served as LaValle's backing band for the Album Leaf set. Last fall, he finally took the band up on their long-standing offer to come record his next album with them and members of Múm at their 1930s swimming-pool-turned-studio in Mosfellsbaer, an invitation they rarely extend to outside artists.

It didn't turn out exactly as planned, but LaValle isn't complaining. "I expected it to be a completely collaborative experience, but when I got over there they were all just way too busy, so it ended up just me being in their studio alone for a lot of the time and then Jónsi or [keyboardist] Kjarri [Sveinsson] or the Múm people popped in every now and then. Which actually was great because the songs were written completely by me, but there's still all these other people on the album playing instruments that I wouldn't have thought of using."

In addition to the strings, xylophones, vintage organs, glockenspiel, bells, and electric piano that flesh out LaValle's dreamy keyboard- and guitar-derived melodies and electronic beats, In a Safe Place sports vocals (some by LaValle, some by Birgisson, and some by Pall Jenkins, who's in Lavalle's other band, the Black Heart Procession) on half its tracks--a first for the Album Leaf. In an effort to re-create much of that sound on his current tour, LaValle's performing with a five-piece band that includes a violinist and live drummer.

The whole experience has been so positive that LaValle's already eagerly anticipating his next collaboration, whatever form it takes. "I kind of want to repeat it but in a different way," he says. "Maybe next time I'll go to Germany and work with a bunch of electronic people."

As the sun rose majestically over the Bavarian forest.... Oh, forget it.

editor@thestranger.com