Back catalogue: Leftfield

Review: CyberindustrialEBMwavepost-punkIDMmutantelectro. No commas, no punctuation, just one throbbing, convulsing, dystopian mass informed by the bleakest visions of a sci-fi future we deserve but definitely don't want. Originally hailing from Australia, but long-since relocating to Berlin's eastern ends, Kristian Bahoudian, AKA Kris Baha, has clearly absorbed his surrounds, grown through them, and learnt how to channel that brutalism into something truly potent. It's also narratively driven, with the titular spirits in the system a reference to humans in the age of advanced artificial intelligence - beholden to dictatorial codes that rob us of our essence, vitality and individuality. An awakening among a select few means a small number of people become self-aware, again, and can begin pushing back. And this point of tension, between human and machine, plays out sonically. Talk about painting a vivid picture.

Review: Diamanda Galas's The Divine Punishment was the first album in her Masque of the Red Death trilogy and is a stark, confrontational record that was produced in response to the AIDs epidemic. On the same day it was first released back in 1986, the Supreme Court criminalized consensual sex between men at a time when then epidemic was truly taking hold. Galas uses her voice both to deliver oration taken from the Old Testament as well represent AIDS and its ill effects. Dark analogue synth drones by Dave Hunt and haunting atmospheres complete this most brilliantly bleak put poignant work.

Review: Prepare to be challenged, rewarded, amazed, mystified and generally won over. New Zealand musical Goliath of the hallucinogenic experimental rock variety, Alastair Galbraith can sound like the Patti Smith tripping on peyote album recorded with the Soundwalk Collective last year, the Velvet Underground's attempts to write music in the vein of heroin cold turkey, Beta Band in full hypnosis mode or strikingly pared back classic country folk. And he deftly shifts between these styles with seamless and seemingly effortless ease. Poetic, DIY, and steeped in an improvised tradition, guitars help tell journeyman tales, violins recount mournful stories, and distorted, obtuse sections provide a sense of not only rules going out the window, but rules never existing to begin with in the mind of the album's creator. Tightly coiled at times, loose and open in other moments, it's difficult to categorise and even harder to forget.

Review: Barcelona's Domestica are specialists in unearthing some of the rawest and most cutting-edge material from the past and they've once again stepped onto something truly special. Fernando Gallego were a Spanish post-punk outfit whose music didn't quite get the attention in deserved way back when in the eighties, but all that doesn't seem to matter when you take into account just how forward-thinking their attitude and style were. Each track is a fine blend of the kind of crusty EBM that Nitzer Ebb has made, Throbbing Gristle's noise-fuelled guitar riffs, and even a touch of proto-techno a-la Liaisons Dangereuses. All in all, it's a heavy-duty package for all you collectors, and a fine introspective into Spain's hidden alternative scene of the twentieth century. Another winner from the Domestica camp!

Review: Created by Thierry Merigout and Vincent Hachet in 1986, both students at the School of Architecture in Nancy, France, across six mind-melting albums Geins't Nait managed to push significant boundaries, getting as close to interpreting the surrealist art movement on record as anyone ever could. Aurally broad work that somehow has the consistency required to feel like a whole.

As is implied, Archives 2/3 is the second of three collections of archive work from the outfit, and it's every bit what fans would be hoping for. Trippy in the extremis, not least in fare like 'Casse 1', and its strange combination of whirring rhythm, static interference and public speech, or 'Inkel', which essentially constructs patterns of percussion from the sound of broken glass, it's like stepping into a new reality.

Review: Adding to the seemingly endless pile of reissues/retrospectives that focus on anything remotely related to COUM Transmissions or Throbbing Gristle, here comes 'Dreams Less Suite', which is a compilation album made up entirely of Hafler Trio and Genesis P-Orridge's unused film soundtracks, live shows and versions. Describable perhaps as 'dream noise', this album somehow straddles both the grating and the serene, quickly hopping between everything from industrial techno to glassy hell sounsdcapes.

Review: Japanese industrial noise duo The Grogerigegege are something of an urban legend within the underground music scene. Apparently meeting at a sex club where a shared appreciation for envelope pushing sex acts, punishing aural sonics and a bizarre avant-garde perspective on art would lock them together for ensuing decades of musical mayhem. Known for incorporating nudity, violence, broken glass and hoovers into their live set, the pair would even take a lengthy respite while one of the members simply disappeared for years on end before reconnecting with his counterpart. As If It Had Always Been Determined Since This Day Was Born transports listeners back to the pair's earliest forays into calculated extremity with blown out, overdriven remixes taken directly from the master tapes of their first 7" single released back in 1988. This includes the long sought after remaster of 'Mistress' originally used in the legendary Enoshima Beach Flexi Burning Live (which the pair opted to burn all original pressings of rather than make readily available). You do have to remember these are the same lads who sold dried out octopus tentacles in cassette cases during one tour as a limited release, and smashed up the master recording of another work and put the broken pieces in a metallic box that the listener shook to hear the album, hence the title You Are The Music Maker. If the utter lunacy of The Grogerigegege isn't detailed enough here, well this pressing comes complete with 5500 word essay-style liner notes penned by 55 year old Gero himself (Juntaro Yamanouchi).

Review: Long-serving Japanese experimental duo The Gerogerigegege last appeared on the Trilogy Tapes back in 2019 with Uguisidani Apocalypse, a typically intriguing and off-kilter imagined soundtrack for Tokyo's least-used subway line. (Decrescendo) is not new - it first appeared on a limited, Japan-only cassette release last year - but here appears on vinyl for the first time. It's undoubtedly one of the pair's most becalmed and quietly beautiful sets to date, with the two side-long tracks wrapping deep, distant-sounding new age melodies and unfurling ambient chords is hissing noise and atmospheric field recordings. The result is a surprisingly meditative affair that's as immersive as it is casually picturesque.

Review: Gesaffelstein's fourth album, GAMMA, marks a departure from his previous work, embracing camp over cool. With influences ranging from seventies electro-punk to synth-pop, the album is a riot of overdriven synth-pop and vintage rock'n'roll. Singer Yan Wagner's oily baritone adds depth, channeling Dave Gahan's toughness with a humorous twist. The album's eccentricity shines through in Wagner's deranged lyrics and unpredictable delivery, injecting humor and unpredictability into the mix. Tracks like 'The Urge' and 'Hysteria' showcase Gesaffelstein's knack for crafting sharp hooks and infectious grooves. Clocking in at concise lengths, each track contributes to the album's charm, focusing on thrusting hips and sharpened hooks rather than lofty concepts. GAMMA is a refreshing departure from Gesaffelstein's previous sound and a exciting new direction.

Review: Over the last few years, Bristol's Giant Swan have rightly become one of the most admired and talked about acts in techno, primarily thanks to their brilliant live shows and a gritty, loose-limbed take on industrial techno that combines a free-wheeling punk attitude with more funk than is normally found within the scene they inhabit. The duo's long awaited debut album is a little more mixed-up sound wise (I.E there's a little more guitar and it's not all full-throated hedonism), but happily they've stayed true to their roots and offered up something reminiscent of their legendary live shows. In other words, it's a great first missive; we expect there to be even better albums to come from Giant Swan in the years ahead.

Review: Godflesh are back with a new single taken from their new and upcoming album Purge which finds frontman Justin Broadwick - formerly half of Techno Animal with The Bug's Kevin Martin - using music as a way of processing his autism and PTSD. It is full throttle, dense post-rock music with his guttural vocals front and centre amidst walls of scuzzy guitar and industrial drum sounds. The original of 'Nero' comes remixed, and also as a dub and alternative version which is even more head-twisting. Not for the faint of heart, this one.

Review: Godflesh returns after a nearly six-year hiatus, following up 2017's Post Self with a brand new one, Purge. It's something of a revisiting of the same concepts explored in the duo's 1992 album Pure: a recent interview with founding member Justin Broadrick reveals he's a very emotional character, having dealt with issues such as diagnosed autism and PTSD. The title Purge is apt, then, alluding to its hellish feudal qualities (and clearly, the righteous ousting of them). Each track segues through reams of noise, experimental hip-hop and guitar riff bombast as ever, all while grasping after fearsome themes of paternalism and monarchy.

Review: Purge is the much anticipated new album from rock behemoths Godflesh. The band is led by frontman Justin Broadwick - formerly half of Techno Animal with The Bug's Kevin Martin - who has expressed his discomfort at being quizzed about his music on social media. He battles with autism and PTSD and uses music as therapy and a release from the stress and isolationism that comes with those conditions. This record finds the band look back to their 1992 album Pure which is what first marked them out as special and it's raw, dense, unrelenting heavy rock with snarled vocals that offer comfort for the despairing.

Review: In a heartfelt tribute to the late Mike Wells, Viasonde, with the blessing of the Wells family, reintroduces Gridlock with vinyl reissues of their four main albums, starting with The Synthetic Form double LP. In the mid-90s, amidst a dance-floor-centric electro-industrial scene, San Francisco metal defectors Mike Wells and Mike Cadoo bonded over non-metal influences, leading to the creation of Gridlock. Armed with a sampler and synths, Wells crafted tracks that Cadoo enhanced with vocals, resulting in a grittier, more ominous electro-industrial sound. Eschewing upbeat rhythms for a dystopian pace, they drew inspiration from Skinny Puppy, Einsturzende Neubauten, and Fields of the Nephilim. Their Sickness demo faced numerous rejections for its lack of danceability until Pendragon Records recognised its potential - this reissue is testament to Gridlock's unique legacy and enduring impact.

Review: Urashima is a label which deals in sonic and aesthetic extremities - harsh noise for embittered souls. Following on the heels of the five-disc Death Synth Box release from Controlled Death comes Message by GRIM, a late 80s project from White Hospital's Jun Konagaya. As always, this is not music for the feint-hearted, and the sheets of white noise and distortion come barrelling out of the record grooves. It's a niche concern, but amongst the fervent power electronics fan base, this limited edition of 199 is sure to fly out.

Review: Tokyo-based duo Group A have been operating as outliers for many years now, self-releasing music and earning a reputation for their incendiary live shows. After catching the ear of Alessandro Adriani's mighty Mannequin label, they released a self-titled EP on the Italian imprint back in 2017, and now they're finally back to follow it up with a full-length. Being on Mannequin you should know to expect beyond the grave sonics with heavy notes of industrial and minimal wave, but Group A intersperse this with their own particular strain of sonic personality, from dismembered voices to American TV rips (on the excellent "Channel Surfing". It's an imposing listen, not to mention a captivating one.