Album reviews: Grian Chatten of Fontaines DC guests on new Leftfield record
Grian Chatten contributes his Dublin-inflected sprechgesang to the new Leftfield LP
- Leftfield
- This Is What We Do
- ★★★★☆
Leftfield’s music is rooted in the protean rush of the dance floor – and yet, with their recorded output, these titans of 1990s electronica believe in taking their time. This Is What We Do is just their fourth LP in nearly 30 years - and given the shadow cast by their 1994 debut, Leftism, has lots to live up to.
But the album is more than worthy addition to the group’s scintillating catalogue. Its calling card is Full Way Round, a stream-of-consciousness banger featuring spoken word from Grian Chatten of Fontaines DC (following in the proud tradition of Leftfield guests such as Toni Halliday and John Lydon).
Chatten’s contribution has a Joycean intensity –and Leftfield's founder Neil Barnes has confessed that the meaning of the track is largely lost on him. However, there is no ambiguity regarding the wider message, which is to stay strong in challenging circumstances.
That is a lesson Barnes came by the hard way as recording sessions for This Is What We Do coinciding with the end of his marriage, bouts of depression and, in 2021, a brush with colonic cancer. That is life coming at you full speed and from out of those challenges Barnes, working with engineer Adam Wren, has forged a punchy and cathartic comeback.
Even as it soars the project embarks on a white-knuckle journey backwards in time, single Pulse feeling like it’s escaped from a hardcore night at Sir Henry’s circa 1997 and Accumulator grafting a happy hardcore groove to big-beat rumble. The lesson is clear and exhilarating: Barnes has made it through that long, cold night and Leftfield are back to share with us the irresistible dark energy that is their signature.
- Laura Cannell and André Bosman
- New Christmas Rituals
- ★★★★☆
As Christmas receives a spooky twist in the new EP from violinist Laura Cannell and bassist André Bosman. This is December 25 recast as a vintage ghost story straight from Dickens, with Cannell’s crepuscular violin swooping low on the title track, as Bosman’s bass rises up from the deep.
The results are wonderfully wintry. Their version of God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen jingles with subterranean menace; the Shropshire Carol has the creepy quality of mists gathered over grey December fields.
This is a Christmas we all know – a time of cold funnelling into your marrow and of early sunsets – but one that is rarely acknowledged. Cannell and Bosman have repackaged it into something magical and effervescent – a seasonal comedown that thrills even as it chills.
