Back catalogue: Leftfield

Review: Elektronik Body Girl is the musical alter-ego of Shelbatra Jashari featuring production assistance from Brussels's soFa. The Belgo-Albanian postpunk pair cooked up sounds that accompany an imagined dystopian industrial wasteland with tons of improv and lots of raw, jagged rhythm. Dealing with the "empowering feminine" and its representation were key to the vision of Jashari as well as abrasive textures and stark atmospheres. Her vocals touch on her roots in Belgium and Kosovo from an outsider's position and label associate Toulouse Low Trax cooks up a brilliant beatdown mix to seal the deal.

Review: Let's get a few things clear before we start. This Heinrich Dressel is not the same German archeologist Heinrich Dressel who studied under the great Theodor Mommsen in Berlin during the late-mid 1800s. He is, however, the Rome-born electronic producer who takes a massive lead from the funky, glittering, but subtly chilling horror movie scores of the 1970s and 1980s, crafting highly detailed but lo-fi feeling tracks that are packed with pastiche but never parody.

Promenade is his latest effort, and instantly captures (or creates) the atmosphere this producer is best-known for. At a time when this end of synth wave has experienced a huge resurgence thanks to successive movie soundtracks that took a lead from the aforementioned era, not to mention TV series like Stranger Things, this couldn't be more appropriate, and what makes it so essential is that authenticity in audible - feeling like it belongs, rather than simply riding a bandwagon.

Review: M Parent's penchant for texture is laid bare on this searing and arresting new EP for Zement. It opens with 'Gravel Pit' which sounds like an audio diary from a car-wrecking plant. Twisted metal, fizzing battery acid, and crushed glass all feature over a distorted baseline and broken rhythm. Those same scuzzy sounds define the rest of the EP from the acid-laced 'Ideal Future' to the coruscated funk of 'Acid Thirst' via the caustic intensity of closer Climb These Walls'. An impressively unique offering that very much has its own singularly sound palette.

Review: ***B-STOCK: Slight surface marks ***


Chapelle XIV Music, Yoyaku's art gallery label, signs up Shaun Soomro for this beautiful EP which combines elements for mind, body and soul. 'Rage & Harmony' kicks off with some dusty breakbeats and is doused in silky pads awash with subtle euphoria. 'The Laughing Heart' is a blissful ambient interlude full of texture and timbre and 'Illusions Of You (dub)' is a moment of go-slow loveliness on a codeine-paced rhythm. 'Dusk God' shuts down with more misty, grainy, lo-fi ambient and dub fusions.

Review: Caribou shares his latest record, this time for City Slang, Honey. The timely follow-up to 2020's Suddenly, Honey comes preceded by the forerunning singles 'Broke My Heart', 'Volume' and 'Honey'. Caribou aka Dan Snaith has more than proven his mettle as a multifarious artist, with the toweringly popular Odessa album only scratching the surface of what could otherwise be described as a much more experimental, tricky and salubriously varied discography. Honey plays up the pop-oriented capabilities of Snaith's many-tentacled sound, circling the intentionally mystified identity of the artist himself; 'Come Find Me' asks the listener to come find Snaith, while its corresponding music video features a childlike figure in a Brave New World-style jumpsuit, dancing to the song, as if to suggest a coquettish playfulness, poking through the swellingly progressive, end-of-summer house track. Adding to the pangram of bright and hopeful post-folktronica hits, Honey is sure to attract all the late-summer dance bees.

Review: When Marie Davidson announced last year that she would be, "retiring from club music", many wondered what she'd do next. Renegade Breakdown, her first album recorded with a full band (L'Oeuil Nu), answers that question. It sees the Canadian artist and her new collaborators deliver suitably arresting, personal and ear-catching songs built on mixing and matching a surprisingly wide variety of musical inspirations, from Blondie, classic disco and mutilated heavy metal guitars, to Kraftwerk, Billie Holliday, Fleetwood Mac and Daft Punk. It's a big shift for the previously highly experimental artist, but thanks to her skill as both a a producer and performer, one that works magnificently well.

Review: There's always been something a little loved-up about the scattergun, genre-bending productions of New York's Drew Lustman, AKA Falty DL. Yet previously, his desire to fuse cutting-edge rhythms with vintage rave references sometimes got in the way. Hardcourage, his first full-length for independent behemoths Ninja Tune, takes a more 'softly-softly' approach. Whereas his last full-length, 2011's You Stand Uncertain, was a kaleidoscopic invitation to start the dance, Hardcourage gently beckons you towards a loving embrace. While there are still plenty of skittish rhythms present, they're wrapped up in a warm orange glow - all serotonin-soaked chords, cascading melodies, bluesy vocal samples and near-Balearic compositions. In many ways it's a startling about-turn, but one that comes heartily recommended.

Review: We're asked to Imagine This Is A High Dimensional Space Of All Possibilities. But the twist is, this plane of existence we somehow find ourselves in already is. Such is the overarching fable at the heart of James Holden's new album. The esteemed electronic musician and DJ knows as much, and is quoted to have said 'I want this to be my most open record, uncynical, naive, unguarded, the record teenage me wanted to make'. So, a high dimensional space of all possibilities can be found within us, right where we started - not some other dimension or higher plane of consciousness. All this is conveyed pretty neatly through Holden's crushed bitscapes, future techno ambientrancers, and exploration of revolutionary themes. Like exploring a bountiful rainforest full of bohemians and mushrooms, longtime fans and newcomers alike are sure to be delighted.

Review: Russian titan Monokle is back to once again traverse many different sound worlds with his new album Ultraflowers. It is one of a number of superb albums landing on Constellation Tatsu this summer and one defined again by its warmth. The title track is a lo-fi, scruffy and deep opener with persuasive breakbeats, while 'Glassy Eyed' is an ambient jungle trip that drips with watery melody. 'Night Objects' offers some introspection and 'Moths' is a glitchy future techno cut with smeared synth soul. '1000Work' layer sup more breaks with elegant ambient melodies and 'Predteche' casts you admit in the deepest corners of space.