Leftfield

Formation

Neil Barnes' music career started off as a DJ at The Wag Club while simultaneously playing percussion on a sessional basis. In 1986, he joined the London School of Samba and played the bateria in the 1986 Notting Hill Carnival. Around 1989, inspired by Afrika Bambaataa, Barnes decided to try his hand at electronic music production, the results of which were the tracks "Not Forgotten" and "More Than I Know", released on Rhythm King Records offshoot label Outer Rhythm. For the remixes of these tracks, Barnes called upon Paul Daley, percussion player with A Man Called Adam and formerly a session musician for the Brand New Heavies and Primal Scream, appearing on their Dixie-Narco EP. Barnes and Daley had previously worked together as percussionists at The Sandals first club, Violets. Described by Barnes as "[t]he sound of 15 years of frustration coming out in one record", the piece was termed "Progressive House" by Mixmag and held significant prominence in nightclubs from 1991 onwards. As their mutual interest in electronic music became clear the pair decided that they would work instead upon Leftfield, once Barnes had extricated himself from his now troublesome contract with Rhythm King's Outer Rhythm subsidiary. The name Leftfield was originally used by Barnes for his first single, with editing/arranging and additional production undertaken by Daley. However, after this, Daley was subsequently involved in remixing "Not Forgotten" and thereafter in the creation of all of Leftfield's work until the band split up in 2002.

During this period, in which the band could not release their own music owing to the legal dispute with Rhythm King, the pair undertook remix work for React 2 Rhythm, I.C.P. (Ice Cool Productions), Supereal, Inner City, Sunscreem, Ultra Naté and provided two remixes to David Bowie's single "Jump They Say". Finally, once the problems with their former label had been sorted out, Leftfield were able to unveil their single "Release the Pressure".

Albums

''Leftism''

Leftfield's first major career break came with the single "Open Up", a collaboration with John Lydon (of Sex Pistols fame) that was soon followed by their debut album, Leftism in 1995, blending dub, breakbeat, and house. It was shortlisted for the 1995 Mercury Music Prize but lost out to Portishead's Dummy.{{cite book

''Rhythm and Stealth''

Their second album, Rhythm and Stealth (1999) maintained a similar style, and featured Roots Manuva, Afrika Bambaataa and MC Cheshire Cat from Birmingham. The album was shortlisted for the Mercury Music Prize in 2000 but lost out to Badly Drawn Boy's The Hour of Bewilderbeast. It reached No. 1 in the UK Albums Chart. The album featured the song "Phat Planet" which featured on Guinness' 1999 advert, Surfer, and "6/8 War" featured on the Volkswagen Lupo Advert 'Demon Baby'. The track "Double Flash" featured in the PlayStation software game Music 2000. Leftfield split in 2002, with both Barnes and Daley planning to work on separate solo projects.

Reformation and ''Alternative Light Source''

Leftfield headlined RockNess in Dores, Scotland in June 2010, Creamfields in Cheshire, England in August 2010, and played the final set on the main stage at Ireland's three-day festival, Electric Picnic in September. Further headline festival shows were announced in the coming weeks. Leftfield is now represented by Neil Barnes on keyboards and drum programming, with a rotating group of vocalists, MC Cheshire Cat, Adam Wren on engineering and programming and Sebastian 'Bid' Beresford on drums. Founding member Paul Daley declined to rejoin, focusing on his solo DJ career.

On 25 March 2015, the new single, "Universal Everything", was premiered on Annie Mac's BBC Radio 1 show. Shortly afterwards the new album was announced via the Leftfield website and social networks, along with UK tour dates for June 2015.

Alternative Light Source, Leftfield's first album in 16 years, was released on 8 June 2015 on Infectious Records. On 1 June 2015 the album premiere was streamed live on Twitter, coupled with conversation via hashtag #leftfieldstream. "Head and Shoulders" features Sleaford Mods on vocals, and its stop-motion and animation hybrid video debuted on Pitchfork on 6 August 2015.

''This Is What We Do''

A fourth album was declared finished by Barnes via Twitter on 4 February 2022, later revealed to be titled This Is What We Do. It was released on 2 December 2022 on Virgin. It debuted at No. 18 on the UK Albums Chart, before dropping out of the Top 100.

Commercial use of tracks

The song "Phat Planet" was used in the "Surfer" TV advertisement for Guinness, ranked number one in Channel 4's Top 100 Adverts list in 2000. "Phat Planet" was also used in the animated television series Beast Machines: Transformers, the simulation racing games F1 2000 by EA Sports and Racedriver GRID by Codemasters. The song "Open Up" was used for the intro and main menu in the game All Star Baseball 2000 by Acclaim Sports. "Swords" was used in an advertisement for the Irish mobile phone service Eircell. In addition, their song "Release the Pressure" was used on advertisements for the O2 mobile phone network at its launch, and the Kerry Group's Cheestrings snack in 2006. "A Final Hit" was featured on the Trainspotting soundtrack; the b-side "Afro Ride" was also featured on the soundtracks to both wipE'out" and wipE'out" 2097 although it did not appear on the album of the first game.

A white label release called "Snakeblood" was featured on the soundtrack of The Beach (2000). The song was found to have sampled OMD's "Almost" without permission.

The song "Storm 3000" has been used as the theme tune for the BBC television programme Dragons' Den.

Live performances

In November and December 2010, Leftfield did a series of dates around the UK and Ireland. Friday 3 December's gig saw more plaster fall from Brixton Academy's ceiling.

Discography

Studio albums

Compilation albums

Live albums

Singles

Remixes

Soundtracks and various compilations

• From the Shallow Grave soundtrack :"Shallow Grave" (Featuring Christopher Eccleston) :"Release the Dubs"
• From the Hackers soundtrack: :"Inspection (Check One)" :"Open Up" (featuring John Lydon)
• From the wipE'out" soundtrack :"Afro Ride" (from the EP Afro-Left)
• From 104.9 (An XFM Compilation) :"Praise"
• From the Trainspotting soundtrack :"A Final Hit"
• From the Trainspotting#2 soundtrack :"A Final Hit" (full-length version)
• From the wipE'out" 2097 soundtrack :"Afro Ride" (from the EP Afro-Left)
• From the Go soundtrack :"Swords" (featuring Nicole Willis) (Original Version)
• From The Beach soundtrack :"Snakeblood"
• From the Vanilla Sky soundtrack :"Afrika Shox"
• From Beast Machines, and EA Sports F1 2000 :"Phat Planet"
• From Lara Croft: Tomb Raider :"Song of Life"

References

References

1. "Neil Barnes {{!}} Music Department, Actor, Writer".
2. Frank Tope. (February 1995). "Burn Bassbins Burn". Mixmag.
3. (5 December 1992). "RELEASE THE PRESSURE!". Melody Maker.
4. Johns, Matt. (6 October 2015). "Neil Barnes of Leftfield recalls playing with LSS on BBC Radio 6 interview".
5. (5 February 1995). "Rave Gauche". New Musical Express.
6. (May 1996). "Gauche in the Machine". New Musical Express.
7. (1997). "[[Encyclopedia of Popular Music". [[Virgin Books]].
8. (4 March 2002). "LEFTFIELD SPLIT {{!}} NME".
9. Marszalek, Julian. (2 February 2010). "Leftfield Reform for Loch Ness". Spinner.
10. "Paul Daley".
11. (26 March 2015). "LEFTFIELD ARE LOOKING FOR AN 'ALTERNATIVE LIGHT SOURCE'".
12. (26 March 2015). "Leftfield return with Alternative Light Source".
13. (1 June 2015). "TONIGHT: Leftfield to live-stream new album". Never Enough Notes.
14. (6 August 2015). "Leftfield and Sleaford Mods share new video for 'Head And Shoulders'". Never Enough Notes.
15. Leftfield. "I'm being lazy today. As new Leftfield album is finished ….".
16. Neale, Matthew. (2022-07-27). "Leftfield announce first album in seven years, share new single 'Pulse'".
17. (15 December 2022). "This Is What We Do by Leftfield".
18. (12 July 2017). "25 Favourite Uses of Classic Synth Samples".
19. (25 May 2010). "One half of Leftfield, Neil Barnes, tells why he can't wait to give Rockness a blast of the coolest sounds down memory lane".
20. "Leftfield – Rhythm and Stealth review". Select magazine.
21. (7 April 2000). "LEFTFIELD – LEFTFIELD TOUR IN MAY: UK dates announced.". music3w.com.
22. "UK chart peaks". [[Official Charts Company]].
23. "Belgian (Flanders) chart peaks". ultratop.be.
24. "French chart peaks". lescharts.com.
25. "Dutch chart peaks". dutchcharts.nl.
26. "New Zealand chart peaks". charts.nz.
27. "Norwegian chart peaks". norwegiancharts.com.
28. "Swiss chart peaks". hitparade.ch.
29. "BPI Certification". [[British Phonographic Industry.
30. "Leftfield Chart History: Dance Club Songs".