Back catalogue: Leftfield

Review: This 7" from Yao Bobby & Simon Grab is as esoteric as it gets. If you don't like noise, you won't like this, it's that simple. The two tracks are taken from their recent album 'Wum' on LAVALAVA. It is some of their most abrasive and confrontational music to date. 'Nyagblodi' is an attack on corrupt African politicians with a loud, guttural voice and frazzled synth over heavily distorted drums. On the flip, 'Church' has a broken beat rhythm, hardcore industrial texture and more powerful vocal chants. These are two hard-as-nails tunes with a powerful message.

Review: A genre-defying exploration of industrial, noise and breakbeat influences. With a strong vocal presence and a deep understanding of break-based rhythms, YSSUE creates a unique sonic landscape that challenges conventions. Side-1 opens with 'Count 7/8', blending acoustic and synthetic sounds in a way that feels both experimental and grounded. The track's rhythmic complexity and textural depth set the tone for the rest of the album. 'Wherever' follows, merging jungle breakbeats with industrial intensity, while maintaining a catchy, accessible edge that will appeal to fans of both genres. The title track, 'Human Nature', stands out with its gritty, downtempo atmosphere. Reminiscent of Massive Attack's Mezzanine, the track's production is dark and atmospheric, layering dub elements with a subtle, edgy intensity that captures the essence of the human condition. Side-2 opens with 'No Cops In Paradise', where dub meets breakcore in a clash of electronics, creating a chaotic yet controlled rhythm. 'Hefty Dub' closes the album with a tribute to dub, offering a deep, immersive groove that wraps up the journey with a satisfying, bass-heavy finish. Human Nature is a bold, boundary-pushing record that successfully fuses disparate influences into something entirely fresh.

Review: Adalsteinn Gudmundsson aka Yagya has long been at the forefront of the dub world, He has a fantastically painterly style that fauna him sweeping long-tailed chords across wide-open vistas and laying down smooth basslines that lock you in. The changing seasons of his native Incline have often been his chief inspiration and that's the case again here on his most dreamy work to date. The record is divided into the distinct moods of Spring ('Vor') and Autumn ('Haust') and is brilliantly escapist and evocative.

Review: Susumu Yokota's venerated 1994 classic Acid Mt. Fuji is reissued in expanded, deluxe fashion, as part of the 30th anniversary celebrations of the label that originally released it. Japan's Musicmine - specifically its electronic subsidiary Sublime - released the album on June 29, 1994, simultaneously with Ken Ishii's Reference To Difference, as their inaugural joint offering. Tantamount to a fusion of ambient acid/rave - then still nascent in Japan - with new age music, Susumo Yokota was likely the best man for the job at the time. With his first album, The Frankfurt-Tokyo Connection, he'd not yet established his electro-pastoralist style, yet it was Acid Mt. Fuji that divined the latter-day emotes of Sakura, a new age so adroitly fused with electronica yet emulable by few. Though the later years of Yokota's life have been couched in a good deal of privacy and mystery, Acid Mt. Fuji certainly betrays a fittingly shrewd and introspective character on the part of the artist, one that served him well. Its long, drawn-out nature soundscapes - tempered by the piquant sounds of modern synths like the TB-303, which animistically, pseudohallucinogenically blend with the animal sounds themselves - recall something like an alpine augur's waking dream.

Review: It's not easy trying to pin down Yoshi, the Italian producer. Info is thin on the ground but we do know that parts of A Sunny Place for Shady People are clearly inspired, at least in part, by the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto and other Japanese digital pop moguls, A Sunny Place is as exploratory and avant garde as it is universal, and steeped in a kind of authenticity that means it could quite possibly have been made at any point since the mid-1980s. A noteworthy achievement and a fantastic, instantly replay-able album.

Review: Terry Riley's 'In C' had a huge impact on 20th Century music, first presented in 1964, it sounds out of this world, even today, and is as fixated on creating a musical impression as it is the technical rules it insists upon to achieve that - 53 phrases, each musician allowed to repeat theirs as many times as they like so long as they do things in the order they first appeared, making success reliant on listening to each other.

The Young Gods may not have such frameworks, but nevertheless also greatly effected countless other artists. They're a band that - to paraphrase LCD Soundsystem - really did sell, or maybe swap, their guitars in favour of synthesisers, their innovation cannot be understated. Here, then, they offer a new interpretation of Riley's conceptual masterpiece, following his rulebook while somehow managing to make it all new.

Review: Originally released in 2008, the Swiss industrial rock pioneers have reimagined their past material with instruments you'd likely find people tapping away at around a fire in Glastonbury - it's a far cry from the avant-rock high-voltage set up we're used to seeing with them. Nevertheless, they pull it off brilliantly. On 'Our House' they marry the Hang with unhurried arpeggio picking that sounds like a homage to the original Spanish guitar. 'I'm The Drug' takes a hypnotic, desert-rock approach and is adorned with jaw-dropping lead guitar runs. With this album a celebration of the acoustic guitar, it's fitting that they pay tribute to one of the all-time gods of the instrument: Richie Havens. They do justice and then some to his iconic cut 'Freedom'. A track that Havens famously performed at The World Says No To War in Iraq demo in New York City in 2003. The raw delivery that The Young Gods muster with their cover shows they have sincere affinity with said legend and are truly commanding of the stage even with more humble gear.