LEFTFIELD - Leftism - Album Review

LEFTFIELD – Leftism – Album Review

This album holds a very special place in my heart.

Leftfield made an immense contribution to the soundtrack of my early 90s. The group, originally formed by Neil Barnes and Paul Daley are still to this day classed as one of the most influential acts in the development of the electronic music scene.

I still rate the timeline of 1990 to 1995 as the best half decade of my life, for so many musical and social reasons. Many of the friends i made during that stage of my life are still very close. We share a common bond that has been very rarely matched since.

From the moment the dub reggae infused stormer “Release The Pressure” drops on this album, you immediately know the craic and what is about to unfold.

“Song Of Life“, i have played so many times over the years in DJ sets and it still sounds so fresh. “Original“, is probably one of the more well known chill / electronica tracks on the album while you have 100% dance-floor bounders such as “Black Flute”, “Space Shanty“ and their immense collaboration with former Sex Pistol John Lydon on “Open Up”

My love of this album has grown even more over the years as my ears have matured and i now truly appreciate how this was such a groundbreaking piece for its time. Leftfield were one of the first of the new breed of dance / electronic acts to get past the single stages and release an album that people would actually come off the dance floor and listen to in a home environment, in it’s entirety.

I think in an eye opening way at the time, this album and a couple more that also feature in my top 50, made many people, including the music press and critics, realise that this new form of dance / electronic / rave music was here to stay and not just the passing fad that many of them predicted.

These were real acts who could get past the sweaty dance floor stage and command a place on the average person’s coffee table and in the charts.

I still get offered second hand vinyl copies of the original pressing of this album, and 70% of the time they will be battered by a lifetime of heavy party use, have hot rock burns on their sleeves and the vinyl inside will be played to absolute death by a multitude of different friends who borrowed it down through the years.

If pieces of 12 inch vinyl could talk, this particular LP would tell many a tale of psychedelic, afterdark shenanigans.

The memories locked within these tracks and the lifelong friends i made whilst playing this album will stay with me forever, and the reactions i’ve had off dance floors over the years from some of their music, are still some of the best i have ever seen and will quite possibly never be matched by another act’s music.

If you’re having a few refreshing beverages this weekend, take some time to reacquaint yourself with the sheer brilliance of the music within this album and what it meant to one of the most important generations in music history.