Leftfield – Neil Barnes and Paul Daley – one of electronic music’s all time greatest acts – recently released Leftism 22, a very special reissue of their seminal debut album Leftism. Leftfield (now led solely by Neil Barnes) is midway through a UK tour where he has been performing the record in full.
I caught up with Neil before his second, sold-out show at the Academy in Brixton.
“It was amazing last night,” Neil says. “It was the sixth time we’ve played here, and it was the biggest night actually.”
Leftfield was formed in 1989, with their first song, ‘Not Forgotten’ surfacing a year later. Their debut album, Leftism, was released in January 1995. It remains one of the defining statements of dance music, a mixture of musical styles and grooves, and a piece of work that was also nominated for a Mercury prize.
The album spawned numerous hit singles in ‘Open Up’ – their now legendary collaboration with John Lydon; ‘Original’, featuring Curve’s Toni Halliday; ‘Release the Pressure’, featuring Earl Sixteen; and ‘Afro-Left’, with vocals by Neil Cole, aka Djum Djum.
As a fan of Curve myself, I was curious about Neil’s connection with the singer, and how their working relationship was formed and nurtured.
“I was a big fan of Curve,” Neil says. “I wanted to do another indie type of track on the album. We’d already done ‘Open Up’, which Toni liked, and obviously that worked really well, so that was our way in.
“I just got her number and phoned her up. Curve was coming to the end of their career, and they weren’t doing so much. Toni got our idea immediately. What she did was so unusual, it was wonderful. When we went back to re-doing it for the tour, I previously hadn’t listened to it for a while, and I went back and realised what a soulful and moody track it is. People think it’s a really easy song to do, but it’s really hard to sing. Christina, who performs it on this tour, does it absolutely fantastically.
“Also, there’s a real coincidence with Toni. She once drew my attention to the fact that in one of Curve’s lyrics (in ‘Left Of Mother’ on the band’s 1994 album, Cuckoo), there is a line that says: ‘Call me leftfield,’ which is quite mad, because we did call her!”
Leftism 22 arrives 22 years on from the release of the acclaimed original, in a remastered version overseen by Leftfield’s Neil Barnes and Paul Daley. Digital and 2xCD editions feature the original album remastered, as well as all 11 original tracks remixed by a host of artists, including Skream , Adrian Sherwood, BodyJack and Voiski, making 22 tracks in total.
Throughout the 90s, Leftfield were untouchable live and on record, at a time when other British dance music outfits such as Orbital and Underworld pushed electronic music from the underground, out onto the stage and into the charts.
“Playing Leftism live again really brings back loads of memories,” Neil says.
“In the space of 22 years, there have been lots of changes with Leftfield, and there has been a lot of water under the bridge. These are happy memories for me. It was a wonderful, creative experience making that album with Paul. We pushed ourselves to the limit. It was never an easy process. We worked really hard and we took it very seriously.”
● Marriott Meets: Leftfield broadcasts on Gaydio on Sunday 21 June from 11:00 BST. Leftism 22 is out now.
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