Back catalogue: Leftfield

Review: German artist Uwe Zahn (Arovane) and 12k's Taylor Deupree join forces for the first time, having first become acquainted through a shared love of music tech. As Zahn recalls: "After a long email conversation, Taylor and I came up with the idea of recording an album only with sound sources from the Nonlinear Labs C15 synthesizer that we both own. The first sketches were made with an exchanging of C15 patches and a constantly growing shared sound pool that led to the structure of the first songs. Preferring to work in person, but hampered by the pandemic, we resorted to sending projects back and forth. and developed an organic method that inspired and excited us."
With a shared love of experimentation, the two partners took on different roles, Deupree offering the rough diamonds, organic loops and mixing skills, while Zahn took on the more fragile, miniscule sound design. Described as "deep and haunting", with massive worlds compacted into each sound and movement.

Review: Over the years, Sam Shepheard's work as Floating Points has become increasingly ambitious, moving further away from his dancefloor roots and closer to spiritual jazz, new age and neo-classical. Even so, it was still a surprise when Shepheard announced Promises, a 46-minute piece in 10 "movements" featuring the London Symphony Orchestra and legendary saxophonist Pharoah Sanders. It's an undeniably remarkable piece all told; a constantly evolving fusion of neo-classical ambience, spiritual jazz and starry, synthesizer-laden soundscapes notable not only for Sanders' sublime sax-playing and Shepheard's memorable melodic themes, but also the intricate, detailed nature of the musical arrangements. It's a stunningly beautiful and life-affirming piece all told, and one that deserves your full attention.

Review: This collaborative album from Rob Modell (Deepchord) and Taka Noda (Mystica Tribe) presents a brand new and compelling East-West dialogue in the mode of noir ambient dub. It also provides ample opportunity for these two greats of the genre to take a break from the monikers and operate under their own names - reflecting this one's specialness. If the album cover is anything to go by, this is could almost certainly be described as the equivalent of the film Chungking Express condensed into musical form, but musically, Glow World is just that - a glowing world - hauntingly pitting rain patters, chord releases and consonant yet conflicted pads into great overhead swarms of sound.

Review: Since Radiohead went on hiatus a few years back, Thom Yorke has thrown himself into all sorts of solo and collaborative projects. His latest sees him join forces with Sydney-based British electronic music stalwart Mark Pritchard for an album that expands on their previous collaboration (the superb 'Beautiful People' from Pritchard's 2018 album Under The Sun). It's a breathtakingly brilliant concoction all told, with the pair conjuring ethereal, oddball and immersive songs in which Yorke's distinctive vocals - sometimes delivered as you'd expect, other times layered-up, mutilated or utilised as textures - rise above backing tracks made with unusual synths and drum machines, and variously indebted to ambient, IDM, ghostly electronica, lo-fi beat-scapes and the gripping intensity of horror soundtracks. A modern electronic classic in the making.

Review: Phaedra is the fifth studio album by German electronic group Tangerine Dream, recorded in November 1973 at The Manor in Shipton-on-Cherwell, England, and released in 1974 through Virgin. An icier, tempoless departure for a band otherwise better recognised for their sequencer-led, soundtrack-bred sound, this was a hidden moulin for frost-drone fanatics, and a deviant pupil of the otherwise strict Berlin School. Despite receiving little to no airplay, Phaedra gained significant traction through word of mouth when it was released by a rather more hippified Richard Branson's fledgling Virgin label, eventually reaching number 15 on the UK Albums Chart and remaining on the charts for 15 weeks. Its long-form pieces, such as 'Sequent C' and 'Mysterious Semblance At The Strand Of Nightmares', represent an indifference to constraints of timing, instead washing over the ears as diachronic, swirling, crisp ice ambient smirrs.

Review: The then recently reformed Throbbing Gristle's 2005 New Year's Eve performance at Berlin's Volksbuhne pulses with the band's trademark intensity, presenting a vivid snapshot of their uncompromising live ethos, immortalising a key moment in their ongoing evolution, where they intertwine iconic tracks like 'Convincing People', 'Slug Bait', and 'Hamburger Lady' with newer materialigiving a taste of what was to come in their first album in 27 years. The show also marked their first encore in over two decades, a rare treat for fans. As one of the originators of industrial music, their influence looms large, with this performance underscoring their continued commitment to pushing boundaries, both musically and culturally. The shock value of Throbbing Gristle has worn off, but the questions they raised about the nature of art, performance and audience remain compelling, and the music remains as instantly visceral and comfrontational as ever. Their legacy is woven through the dark industrial fabric of countless acts that followed, but the message has always been clear: creativity without compromise is the truest form of rebellion.

Review: When Throbbing Gristle performed live at Camber Sands in December 2004, it was an emotional occasion. All four members had reunited for only the second time since 1981 in order to pay tribute to their dear friend and fellow industrial pioneer John Balance. The resulting performance was electric, with the legendary four-piece putting on a dazzling show of doom-laden industrial magic that is still talked about in hushed tones to this day. This double-disc set, which was previously only available as a limited CD-R release in the days following the performance, presents the 90-minute show in full. It's arguably one of the band's strongest live recordings and feels particularly potent given the circumstances leading up to it.

Review: Throbbing Gristle's second studio album is an essential work that conjures some of the most harsh and nauseating music you can imagine (not a surprise given "Hamburger Lady" is a piece about a patient burned from the waist up and forever contained in a hospital). It was pioneering in texture and technique, and mixes both live and studio recordings into one of the band's most stylistically varied works. Creeping and haunting, confrontational and challenging from front to back, the spoken word samples from children and mutated voices will probably haunt your dreams forever, so listen with caution.

Review: Marseille's IOT Records is the home for Azu Tiwaline's latest dubbed out and dreamy pads and manipulated field recordings. It's her second album and is another one that stands up to her reputation for being a true innovator. Following on from Draw Me a silence in 2020, Teh Fifth Dream is an hour long session that veers from reverberating and bass heavy steppers to next level synth-scapes. Field recordings made in the desert of her native El Djerid, in South Tunisia, feature heavily as do tombak drums and modular synths from Franco-Persian spar Cinna Peyghamy.

Review: Detlef Weinreich's latest release as Tolouse Low Trax is something of a curio, albeit one that's predictably impressive and off-kilter. It's a compilation that boasts some of his own cuts, alongside edits and reworks by friends of tracks described by Bueau B as "hits that never took the charts by storm". Check first 'Subghosts (Tolouse Low Trax Rework)', a bizarre but brilliant fusion of modular electronics and head-nodding organic instrumentation, before admiring the sparse, hard-to-pigeonhole electronic experimentation of Simo Cell's edit of 'A Song and a Photo Novella', the Autechre-esque beats of 'Down Is Temporal (Beat Detectives Dawn Rerub)', and Joakim's club-ready revision of 'Rushing Into Water'. Further inspired excursions are provided by Ido Plumes (the throbbing techno psychedelia of 'Tristoeros Empire') and Froid (the trippy IDM digi-dub of 'Make Friends').

Review: Vittoria Totale is a genuinely unique creative: a self-styled 'independent curator, language researcher and writer' who divides her time between stints in London, Berlin and Rome. Solo Voice, her debut album, is a similarly unusual proposition - a collection of written and improvised 'sound poetry' that alternates between impactfully recited poems, layered vocal experiments (see 'Sometimes', where Totale cuts and pastes phrases, the effects-laden poetic collage that is 'The Messenger Messes With The Masses', the vocalisations and spoken phrases of 'Text Me Next', and the Steve Reich-esque 'Bitte'). With Totale variously musing on sexuality, fantasy, life in the city and much more, it's an intriguing and ultimately fascinating listen.

Review: TR/ST's Performance delves deeper into the dark synth-pop realm Robert Alfons has mastered over the past decade. Recorded in Los Angeles with producer Nightfeelings, the album presents a smoky fusion of eerie synths, deep bass and Alfons' haunting vocals. The title reflects a friend's remark about Alfons' performative essence, a theme echoed throughout the album's narrative. The opener, 'Soon,' starts with ethereal electronics before exploding into a danceable new wave anthem laced with biting lyrics. Tracks like 'All At Once,' 'The Shore,' and 'Boys of LA' showcase Alfons' ability to blend melancholic beauty with intense, almost cinematic production. His voice anchors the emotional turbulence of the album, navigating through themes of guilt, desire, and haunting memories. Performance is an immersive experience that straddles the line between mesmerizing and unsettling. Alfons' lyrical introspection and dynamic soundscapes make this record a standout in the synth-pop genre, cementing TR/ST's place as a rising force in electronic music.

Review: London-based Australian vocalist, producer and multi-instrumentalist Penelope Trappe has always made immersive, enveloping and deeply atmospheric that sidesteps convention. It was that uniquely haunting and emotive approach to ambient and electronica that earned her deals with Optimo Music and Houndstooth, amongst others. Now signed to One Little Independent, Trappes has pushed the boat out further on Requiem, a mournful and bittersweet musical meditation in which her distinctively sweet-but-drowsy vocals rise above manipulated cello textures, hushed field recordings, ambient textures and intriguing electronic sounds aplenty. It's bold, beautiful and at times breathtakingly brilliant, once again marking Trappes out as an artist with a genuinely unique musical vision.

Review: As he's moved further towards a career in soundtrack composition, Trentemoller's music has become increasingly widescreen and atmospheric, with the Danish artist drawing inspiration from dream-pop, the Cocteau Twins and Durutti Column as much as the ambient, electronica and immersive techno he was once famous for. All of these strands combine beautifully on 'Memoria', a picturesque and enveloping affair whose multitude of highlights include the yearning, string-laden and bittersweet brilliance of 'No More Kissing The Rain', the wall-of-sound dream pop shimmer of 'In The Gloaming', the mid-80s indie-pop haziness of 'Dead or Alive' and the glassy-eyed and tactile 'All Too Soon'.

Review: By Scott Hansen's previously prolific standards, we've had to wait a fair old while for a new album. Infinite Health, the third Tycho album for Ninja Tune after years signed to Ghostly International, is by design something of a reset: a self-proclaimed meditation on "hope for the future" mixed with a "requiem for the past". Stylistically, that also means a return to his electronic roots, with colourful, melody-rich and sun-splashed synth sounds combined with unfussy beats and breaks, toasty basslines and glistening, AM radio-friendly guitar licks. It is then, regardless of the inspirations behind it, a classic-sounding Tycho album - as highlights 'Phantom', the instrumental deep synth-pop dreaminess of 'Devices' and the lo-fi, trip-hop influenced shuffle of 'Green' emphatically prove.

Review: Past Inside The Present label head and ambient powerhouse zake and Tyresta follow up their recent and well-received The Worlds We Leave Behind with Jade, a companion album that expands on previous themes in three long-form tracks. It's a deep blending of pregnant drones and delicate details that is typically organic and analogue. 'Jade No. 1' layers analogue textures that make for a comforting, melancholic embrace, while 'Jade No. 2' features more fractured melodies and natural sounds that bring a sense of peace and calm. The third cut, 'Waiting For the Light,' is a lofty one with soft synths and orchestral gravitas that with the other two pieces make for a contemplative and reflective listen.