Back catalogue: Leftfield

Review: The artist himself admits that The Glory Days EP marks a new era for Alan Johnson after a decade of sporadic releases. Building on last year's Stillness EP, this release features entirely new music which has been made over the past two years as the creative process has been refined and moved towards a simpler storytelling approach. Assembled for the YUKU label, the EP showcases a shift in sound that blends past influences with new experimentation and danceable, glossy playfulness. Divided into two distinct moods, it reflects both a nod to a chaotic past and a glimpse into the future with earthed low ends and kinetic rhythms run through with fizzy electronics and menacing moods.

Review: Few artists in electronic music have the serious musical chops of Mathew Jonson. The man has formally studied jazz and always brought famous invention to his synth-heavy sounds under whatever guise he has been working with. Here he is back under his own name on Deset and opens up with some delightful and mellifluous synth ripples on 'Dawn' and then soundtracks a cosmic voyage on scattered percussive sounds and alien effects on 'Artificial Intelligence'. 'SOS' is a broken beat jazz work out and with The Mole he crafts a deep, seductive groove marbled with more great melody on 'Feels So Good.' 'Got Bass' is playful cosmic electro to close.

Review: JS is an alias of James Zeiter and is also the name of his own label. This seventh transmission once again showcases his signature take on minimal, dub and techno. 'JS-07' rolls out with deep, pillow drums and well buried sub bass that slowly sweeps you up and locks you into a state of hypnosis. 'JS-07R' on the flip side is run through with slightly more warmth and light, like beams of sun piercing the surface of an ocean and catching microscopic organisms floating on the sea bed. It's a heady sound full of soul.

Review: Now here's a rarity for you. Not even many of the most committed megafans know that Brian Eno, Holger Czukay and J.Peter Schwalm, accompanied by Raoul Walton and Jern Atai, performed a secret live music show, outside the esteemed Kunst-und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, the Art and Exhibition Hall of the Federal Republic of Germany, situated in the city of Bonn, in August 1998. Forming a part of the opening party of Eno's Future Light-Lounge Proposal multimedia installation, this furtively-recorded album hears an exclusive slice of incidental "high-altitude food music", of course made during Brian Eno's airborne ambient era. Now reissued via Gronland, this five-piece cut of sophisti-ambi-krauttronica makes for a welcome surprise.

Review: The 2023 film Wonka has delighted audiences with its fantastic original soundtrack featuring performances by lead actor Timothee Chalamet and an exceptional ensemble cast including Hugh Grant, Calah Lane, and Keegan-Michael Key. Composed by Joby Talbot and penned by songwriter Neil Hannon, the score captures the essence of the golden age of Hollywood musicals while paying homage to the beloved classics of the past. Director Paul King's vision of a prequel to the iconic 1971 film comes to life with enchanting melodies and vibrant arrangements, inviting listeners on a whimsical journey through the fantastical world of Willy Wonka.

Review: Back in the 1990s, the combination of Mixmaster Morris, Jonah Sharp (he of Spacetime Continuum fame) and Haruomi Hosono was the closest thing you got to an ambient supergroup (the Orb's collaboration with Robert Fripp and Thomas Fehlmann as FFWD not withstanding). The trio only recorded one album together, the sublime Quiet Logic, but it's an absolute doozy - as this timely reissue proves. For one reason or another, it was only ever released in Japan at the time, meaning this is the first time it has been available worldwide. As you'd expect with such masters of the art form at the helm, it is genuinely superb - a slowly evolving opus that moves between unfurling, dub-fired ambient techno ('Waraitake') to ambient jazz eccentricity ('Dr Gauss/Yakan Hiko (Night Flight)'), via deep ambient d&b ('Uchu Yuei (Night Swimming)') and deep space ambient.

Review: Berlin-based producer JakoJako aka Sibel Kocer's debut album for Mute - after appearances on a stream of leading German labels including Tresor - is described as a distillation of ideas that she's been exploring for many years. In reality, that means working on a minimal set up, away from the computer while restricting herself to just a Eurorack and a Waldorf Iridium Core, in the search for spontaneity. She found it, for sure, as the results - recorded in Vietnam during the Tet Lunar New Year celebrations - are a feast of glistening arpeggios and lush modular textures, stripped back but full of expression and personality. 'Ghi-ta' will appeal to fans of vintage perky ambient productions the Pete Namlook/Mixmaster Morris collaboration Dreamfish, while 'Gio' has a touch of Tangerine Dream's classic widescreen sensibilities. Bold tones, bold debut.

Review: Allegedly one of the first ever records to make use of sampling, Jean-Michel Jarre's seventh album Zoolook brought with it a unique vibe, one well worth looking back on in light of its latest Sony reissue. In terms of notoriety, Zoolook pales in comparison to the electronic music crackerjack's 1976-8 heyday, which saw to both Oxygene and Equinoxe; but this is understandable, as Zoolook came much later, and sacrificed the grandiose mood of otherworldly space-awe for an eerier menage of playful factory hits and cacophonous dance hubbubery. Perhaps this sound - a jankier one that grew in popularity in the mid 80s - was driven by Jarre's use of the Fairlight CMI workstation and sampler, an example of a piece of gear that had the power to define an entire sound. We'd venture to say that the titular "Zoolook" is a kind of gaze that, by virtue of us living in a machine society, makes animals of us all.

Review: In 2005, Jan Jelinek "pitched" his electronica/kosmische vision to the potent collective fan by way of ten ecosystemically-informed, prepared ambient numbers. Spanning Bibio-esque reversy guitar and sloshing exotica, this one existed for an inordinate period as a digital download, in which much time elapsed until now, its 20th anniversary - at which point we hear it available again, arriving for the first time on vinyl. Modelled on the sonic prototypes of his German rock forbears, this early electronica work from Jelinek amounts to a fearsomely intricate revue, expanding on krautrock's organic textures and unremittingly restless feel.

Review: Ilian Tape have tapped up Jichael Mackson here for a double album of expressive and forward thinking electronic sounds. The atmosphere generally futuristic and intriguing, with tracks like 'Shangri La' riding on gentle breakbeats amongst air pads, 'Banana Jazz (Quartett)' is a high speed and live sounding jazz-breakbeat workout, 'A Jichalicious Something' is dubby and IDM inflected lushness and 'Good Morning Sunshine' is an interplanetary trip with distant cosmic pads and organic piano chords soothing mind, body and soul.

Review: Building on a career's worth of 90s freeform punk, 00s underground techno and every minimalistic and healing sonic contour in between since then, Jo Johnson returns to the fore with her latest record Red, White & Yellow. "Waves" and "tidal forces" are the first verbal associations that spring to mind, as we're dunked into many a sequent swell and ruminant ripple of sound. In the hat-trick of tracks that is 'It Just Is The Love It Feels', 'Inside Eyes Sparks Fire Under Ice' and 'Unfolding & Folding', we hear a holy trinity of sorts, eschewing isolable tempi or affects for a deeply warming kind of minimalism.