Back catalogue: Leftfield

Review: Floid is back with a second release on Omen Wapta that finds the Delft-based artist mixing up fresh sound designs with potent rhythms that are everything you could wish for - immersive, cinematic, and danceable. 'Opanzi' begins with brilliant hypnotic, stripped back and lurching rhythms marbled with aline sounds and underpinned by driving bass. From there the likes of 'Dufus' twist and contort drums and synths into a tightly woven and mind-melting tapestry and the otherworldly, shamanic feel continues with the urgent throb of 'Zoona', percolating underworld menace of 'Skudd' and high-pressure drum funk of 'Bondo'. A truly unique EP.

Review: Established as a record label some four years ago, Live At Robert Johnson have really come to the fore as representing the best of contemporary European deep house alongside the likes of Dial and Running Back. Here, the Frankfurt institution returns to their recent triumphant Lifesaver compilation with this addendum 12" release featuring the productions from Roman Flugel, Lauer, San Laurentino and Tuff City Kids. Flugel opens proceedings with the rough and moody "More Is Not Enough" which brandishes a beat that can't help but get in your face. This is complemented by the calmer, sumptuous New Beat stylings of Lauer's "Hector" and the richly colourful "Final Landing" from San Laurentino. "People Is A Crackhead (Tuff Hamlet Riddim)" is not only the best track title in a hot minute but yet another original dancefloor slayer from Gerd Janson and Lauer's Tuff City Kids, opting for the Germanic digi dub meets tuff house route.

Review: A collaborative new single by sampletronic master Kieran Hebden (aka. Four Tet) and guitarist and composer William Tyler, two acclaimed musicians and both longstanding friends. Part of a recent spewing-forth of Hebden-adjacent material to hit the shelves after the artist's oft-reported-upon "agent of chaos" phase, these two tracks, pressed to a furtive 12", provide a neat counterpoint to that assessment. Rather than a pair of riddim bangers, the record flaunts Hebden's signature electronic textures and Tyler's guitar into a hypnotic, nominally dark soundwhirl, reminiscent of the earliest days of Text, but with a unique edge - a sonic corner never quite scoured before by either artist.

Review: "Tracks play out like beatless symphonies of wayward folk music who's basement transmissions have been intercepted from the ether; a stirring limbo of grotty emotions that inspire and conflict in equal measure. Portals into zones of sampladelic oddities, haunted vocals and scatty euphoria that is collectively driven by an (un)willingness to straddle familiar pastures." Firnis DC certainly paint a pretty vivid picture of their latest album, on which things are stripped back to the basics, allowing each individual element to breathe properly. This space really works, creating the sensation of endlessness in sound, and a depth of ideas that you can fall through, slowly descending into a world of strange post-rave ambience, looking up at fluffy clouds passing overhead the morning after that night before.

Review: Unheard Of Hope - one prominent tine of the holy trinity / label supergroup known as TAR/MM/UOH - specialises is that all-too-rare subsection of music, the avant-garde. Theirs is a seedier aesthetic, preferring the more traditional, yet grimmer and demurer ends of this hotly contestable musical "approach", and perhaps emblematic of this is the latest record by Guatemalan cellist and vocalist, Mabe Fratti. Out on every format - tape, CD, vinyl - Sentir que no sabes ("feel like you don't know") hears Fratti's crystalline vocals glint like life-giving liquids, and sound too to effuse from the same fruitful source as its watershed cello lows and occasional blossomy arp-pop structures (ballad 'Pantalla azul' is by far the poppiest moment). The evident confidence brought to the record lends it an element of surprise, too, when we discover that it is entirely thematically rooted in doubt. In the words of the artist, this is a record born of the "moment when you feel you don't know anything and you are soft like jello and any fork can go through you." When one finds strength in permeability, one embraces what is normally registered as a pure antagonism, and all seemingly rigid particulars are changed for ever.

Review: FSOL continue to be a prolific force in the sonic universe of their own making. The Environments series they started in 2007 has come to a head with a trio of albums over the past year and this is the last of them. There's a pointed callback at work on Environment 7.003, the cover explicitly referencing seminal early album ISDN, and the album is scattered with subtle nods to those mid 90s glory days. But The Future Sound Of London has always been about pushing forwards and that's precisely what Brian Dougans and Garry Cobain do on this resplendent suite of electronica, sure to satisfy the die hard fans without lazily rehashing old ideas.

Review: Music From Calendars is the on going project Future Sound of London have been helming since 2017. It sees them serve up new digital tracks each month and home put them out as an album at the end of the year. This time out the crew pick some of their best tunes from the last four years and put them together in a seamless mix over the course of 50 minutes. Their sound is a perfect fit for the format - all sleek ambient, gently lilting electronic grooves and sci-fi moods that drift by like zephyrs.

Review: British electronic duo Future Sound Of London celebrate their 30th anniversary in 2018. In From The Archives Vol 9, unpublished tracks from their extensive archives see the light of day for the first time spanning the period from the early 1990s to present day. Discover progressive electronic experiments from the depths of the FSOL catalogue - timeless and innovative expressions in IDM such as "Semi Conscious Participant" or "Super Tide" could have been created during any era, through to sublime ambient house excursions like "Ocea" or "Riverbed". Upbeat moments can be heard on the drum 'n' bass influenced "Without You It's Meaningless" or the blustering beats of "Oska Traveller.