Back catalogue: Leftfield

Review: Never heard of Zoroastrianism? Nothing to do with Zorro, this ancient religion is still practiced by a comparatively small number of people today, and has its roots on the Iranian plateau. Hugely overlooked in the modern world, not least given its incredible influence over may of the tropes we associate with recognisable creeds - heaven, hell, good, evil - here M Geddes Gengras and Psychic Reality pay homage to the history of what might be Western Asia's most mythologised and yet misunderstood nation, while also introducing modern sonic elements and effects.

The result is something that's unarguably original. Ambient work that is vivid and transportive, it's highly rhythmic stuff from start to finish, with tracks like 'The Incremental Spirit' taking that format to the nth degree, while the likes of 'Wilde Pastures' break with a more abstract idea of what these sounds can be.

Review: Stone's Throw has never really made any wrong moves in our opinion, and here the label puts its full force behind a deceptively powerful album. Taking us to places that are deeper than perhaps what the imprint is best known for, this is immersive, hypnotic, otherworldly stuff made from a variety of plugged in machines, analogue and otherwise, including a semi-modular synth. The result is a journey-style collection packed with atmosphere but one that's also painstakingly detailed and textured. Sound waves are rendered almost visible by the movements, drones, tracks and other pieces here, drum and effects machines producing the kind of noises that mesmerise and suck you in further as time passes. Tunes to get lost in, the only remaining question is whether anyone will ever want to return.

Review: "What causes a man who has everything to jeopardise his comfort, career and relationship?" High brow movie streaming service MUBI has a habit of asking difficult questions of its audience, although the answer in this case is actually very simple - 5 Hectares of land in Limoges, France. Emilie Deleuze's delightfully quirky - and therefore thoroughly human and honest - comedy is about just that; one guy's dream of owning a plot in stunning serenity, and what he's willing to lose for it. Bobby Gillespie might be something of an outsider choice to score the flick, if it didn't make perfect sense to draft one of indie rock & roll's true eccentric enigmas. Best known as the voice and front face of the mighty Primal Scream, what's here isn't really that, but it's just as broad, varied and forward thinking. From loopy jazzy beats to strange chants, whispered balladry and compressed lo-fi hip hop.

Review: Gilroy Mere aka Oliver Cherer shows off two different sides of his sound on this new Gilden Gate album for Clay Pipe. It is the latest in a long line of superb sounds over the course of two decades which have distilled folktronic, singer-songwriter, jazz, ghost-pop and guitar tinged disco rock. Here he soundtracks sun-kissed beaches and rural Suffolk on side one and then goes underwater to explore through music the lost city of Dunwich,

Review: Gilroy Mere is one of many alter egos of Oliver Cherer, and when working under this moniker there's a predisposition for transport-themed things to happen. The last album, beautiful and beguiling The Green Line, had a rich, dark green vintage British train on the cover just in case the title wasn't enough. In the past, he's done things themed on bus routes. This time, the locomotive on the sleeve is red.

More so, Adlestrop is a reference to one of many UK railway stations axed in the brutal Beeching Act of the 1960s - a cull of small stations deemed unviable, cutting off many communities. The opener, a strange, almost medieval slice of birdsong, chant, and twinkling chimes, even reels off a list of others that were closed. From there, we go deeper into sounds and words that are as inspired by the idea of rural England and travel as they are the country's eccentricity, which is so commonly founding its leftfield electronic output.

Review: Global Communication's 76:14 stands out as a quintessential ambient album, often overlooked in favour of more hyped releases but in recent years has cemented itself as one of the most important and beloved electronic releases of the 1990s. Tom Middleton and Mark Pritchard, under their Global Communication alias, expertly fuse ambient, Berlin-School and new age influences with beatcraft and dub elements. The album's tracks range from pure ambient pieces reminiscent of early Eno to funk-hop infused rhythms and minimalist dub pulses. Its strong songcraft and unique sonic identity have earned it a dedicated following - richly textured soundscapes and engaging compositions have made it a favourite.

Review: Gnac is a project composer Mark Tranmer started in 1990 and The Echoes on Departure is his seventh album with this alias. He says he started this one soon after he finished his last one, Afternoon Frost, in 2021. It is a more electronic record than that one with some of his favourite chord progressions "and a few new ones." There is also the addition of a human voice on two tracks with Kathleen Stosch of Constant Follower on both Bittersweetness' and 'Until The Heart Stops.' Both are evocative centerpieces for this most lovely piano-led baroque waltz.

Review: It doesn't take long to pick up on Harold GroBkopf's progressive and krautrock roots. Born in Hildesheim as his homeland began picking up the charred postwar ruins, his oeuvre to date includes a stint in a 1960s beat group, The Stuntmen, and then a spell playing with then-unknown heavy rockers, Scorpions, before joining Wallenstein and Ashra as drummer, and getting in on several of Klaus Schulze's solo efforts. Strom betrays much of that heritage, straddling the fine line between electronica and rock, setting out its stall in a hinterland sound that's really neither nor. At times it glitters, in other moments it grinds, sometimes its beguiling, then it's more charming, in a strange, well-left-of-the-middle kind of way. An enigmatic collection of work from a true musical enigma.

Review: Oskaa-born but truly otherworldly producer Daichi Furukawa, aka Ground, is back with a new album that is here to bend your mind and distort your reality with his fourth world follow-up to 2018's cult favourite Sunizm. This experimental odyssey truly defies genre, logic, and linearity as it assembles a chaotic yet mesmerising fusion of organic samples, synthetic textures, tribal rhythms and cosmic noise that are fantastic and freaky. Yaoyorozoo is one of those records that feels both ancient and futuristic as it taps into beautiful and unsettling, inviting and disorienting rhythms and sample sources. Across 73 minutes, it mutates like a dream-always shifting, never settling, so it makes for a cerebral collage for wide-open minds and ears only.