Leftfield are a British

electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroa ...

duo formed in 1989 as the duo of Neil Barnes and Paul Daley (the latter formerly of

the Rivals ''The Rivals'' is a comedy of manners by Richard Brinsley Sheridan in five acts which was first performed at Covent Garden Theatre on 17 January 1775. The story has been updated frequently, including a 1935 musical and a 1958 episode of the T ...

and A Man Called Adam). The duo was very influential in the evolution of electronic music in the 1990s, with ''

Mixmag ''Mixmag'' is a British electronic dance and clubbing magazine published in London. Launched in 1983 as a print magazine, it has branched into dance events, including festivals and club nights. History The first issue of ''Mixmag'' was prin ...

'' describing them as "the single most influential production team working in British dance music". As with many of their contemporaries, such as

the Chemical Brothers The Chemical Brothers are an English electronic music duo formed by Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons in Manchester in 1989. They were pioneers (along with the Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, the Crystal Method, and other acts) in bringing the big beat gen ...

and Fatboy Slim, Leftfield are notable for their use of guest vocalists in their works. Among those involved were

Toni Halliday Antoinette "Toni" Halliday (born 5 July 1964) is an English musician best known as the lead vocalist, lyricist, and occasional guitarist of the alternative rock band Curve, along with Dean Garcia. She was also a member of the bands Photofitz ...

on "

Original Originality is the aspect of created or invented works that distinguish them from reproductions, clones, forgeries, or substantially derivative works. The modern idea of originality is according to some scholars tied to Romanticism, by a notion t ...

Johnny Rotten John Joseph Lydon (; born 31 January 1956), also known by his former stage name Johnny Rotten, is an English singer and songwriter. He was the lead singer of the late-1970s punk band the Sex Pistols, which lasted from 1975 until 1978, and aga ...

on " Open Up", Djum Djum on "

Afro-Left "Afro-Left" is a song by Leftfield, released as their seventh single. The song was released on 12", CD and cassette on 24 July 1995. It featured Neil Cole (as Djum Djum) on vocals, and it was rumoured that the lyrics were in an unspecified Africa ...

", and

Earl 16 Earl Sixteen (b. Earl John Daley, 9 May 1958, Kingston, Jamaica)Gregory, Andy (2002) ''International Who's Who in Popular Music 2002'', Europa, , p. 152 is a reggae singer whose career began in the mid-1970s. Biography Daley grew up in Waltham ...

and Cheshire Cat on "

Release the Pressure "Release the Pressure" is the third single by the English electronic duo Leftfield and the first to involve Paul Daley with writing duties after he joined the group. The song was released exclusively on 12" in 1992. Unlike previous releases that ...

". The term

progressive house Progressive house is a subgenre of house music. The progressive house style emerged in the early 1990s. It initially developed in the United Kingdom as a natural progression of American and European house music of the late 1980s.Gerard, Morgan; ...

was coined to define their style, a fusion of house with dub and

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, " Do the Reggay" was the first popular song to use ...

. There was a hiatus in recording and live performances between 2002 and 2010. When Barnes revived Leftfield, Daley declined to be involved, in order to focus on his solo career. After touring for a few years, Barnes finished writing new material for a third Leftfield album, ''Alternative Light Source''.

Formation

Neil Barnes' music career started off as a DJ at The Wag Club while simultaneously playing percussion on a session 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 the

Rhythm King Rhythm King Records Ltd was a British independent record label, founded in the mid-1980s by Martin Heath, Adele Nozedar, DJ Jay Strongman and James Horrocks. It was based in Chiswick, London. History Beginnings Starting out as an offshoot of ...

label. 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 The Brand New Heavies is an acid jazz and funk group formed in 1985 in Ealing in west London. Centered around songwriters/multi-instrumentalists Simon Bartholomew and Andrew Levy, the core members of the group since its founding, Brand New He ...

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 " e sound of 15 years of frustration coming out in one record", the piece was termed "

Progressive House Progressive house is a subgenre of house music. The progressive house style emerged in the early 1990s. It initially developed in the United Kingdom as a natural progression of American and European house music of the late 1980s.Gerard, Morgan; ...

" by ''

'' 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 subsidiary, Outer Rhythm. 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 REACT or React may refer to: Science and technology * REACT (telescope), a telescope at Fenton Hill Observatory, New Mexico, US Computing * React (JavaScript library) , a JavaScript library for building user interfaces, from Facebook ** React Nat ...

, I.C.P. (Ice Cool Productions), Supereal,

Inner City The term ''inner city'' has been used, especially in the United States, as a euphemism for majority-minority lower-income residential districts that often refer to rundown neighborhoods, in a downtown or city centre area. Sociologists some ...

, Sunscreem,

Ultra Naté Ultra Naté Wyche (born March 20, 1968) is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, DJ and promoter who has achieved success on the pop charts with songs such as "Free", " If You Could Read My Mind" (as part of Stars on 54), and "Autom ...

and provided two remixes to

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...

's single "

Jump They Say "Jump They Say" is a song by English singer-songwriter and actor David Bowie, from his 18th album, ''Black Tie White Noise'' (1993). It was produced by Nile Rodgers and released as the first single from the album in March 1993. While Bowie opt ...

". Finally, once the problems with their former label had been sorted out, Leftfield were able to unveil their single "

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 Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...

'' in 1995, blending dub, breakbeat, and house. It was shortlisted for the 1995

Mercury Music Prize The Mercury Prize, formerly called the Mercury Music Prize, is an annual music prize awarded for the best album released in the United Kingdom by a British or Irish act. It was created by Jon Webster and Robert Chandler in association with the B ...

but lost out to Portishead's '' Dummy''. In a 1998 ''Q'' magazine poll, readers voted it the eightieth greatest album of all time, while in 2000 ''Q'' placed it at number 34 in its list of the 100 Greatest British Albums Ever. The album was re-released in 2000 with a bonus disc of remixes, and again in 2017 as a

remastered Remaster refers to changing the quality of the sound or of the image, or both, of previously created recordings, either audiophonic, cinematic, or videographic. The terms digital remastering and digitally remastered are also used. Mastering A ...

version with eleven completely new remixes.

''Rhythm and Stealth''

Their second album, '' Rhythm and Stealth'' (1999) maintained a similar style, and featured

Roots Manuva Rodney Hylton Smith, better known by his stage name Roots Manuva (born 9 September 1972), is a British rapper and producer. Since his debut in 1994, he has produced numerous albums and singles on the label Big Dada, achieving commercial succ ...

, Afrika Bambaataa, and MC Cheshire Cat from

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1. ...

. The album was shortlisted for the

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

but lost out to

Badly Drawn Boy Damon Michael Gough (born 2 October 1969), known by the stage name Badly Drawn Boy, is an English indie singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. Gough chose his stage name from a character in the show ''Sam and his Magic Ball'', which he saw ...

's ''

The Hour of Bewilderbeast ''The Hour of Bewilderbeast'' is the debut studio album by British musician Badly Drawn Boy, released on 26 June 2000. Damon Gough, who performs as Badly Drawn Boy, wrote, produced, and played several instruments on the album's eighteen tracks, s ...

''. It reached No. 1 in the

UK Albums Chart The Official Albums Chart is a list of albums ranked by physical and digital sales and (from March 2015) audio streaming in the United Kingdom. It was published for the first time on 22 July 1956 and is compiled every week by the Official Charts ...

. The album featured the song " Phat Planet" which featured on Guinness' 1999

advert Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a ...

, '' Surfer'', and "6/8 War" featured on the

Volkswagen Lupo The Volkswagen Lupo (''Typ'' 6X) is a city car that was produced by the German car manufacturer Volkswagen, from 1998 to 2005. It shares most of its aspects with the Volkswagen Group's SEAT Arosa, both derived from the Volkswagen Polo Mk3 platfor ...

Advert 'Demon Baby'. The track "Double Flash" featured in the PlayStation software game ''

Music 2000 ''MTV Music Generator 2'' is a music video game developed by Jester Interactive and published by Codemasters for PlayStation 2 in 2001. Reception The game received "generally favourable reviews" according to the review aggregation website Me ...

''. Leftfield split in 2002, with both Barnes and Daley planning to work on separate solo projects.

Reformation and ''Alternative Light Source''

Leftfield headlined ''Creamfields'' in Cheshire, England in August 2010, ''RockNess'' in Dores,

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

in June 2010, and played the final set on the main stage at Ireland's three-day festival,

Electric Picnic Electric Picnic is an annual arts-and-music festival which has been staged since 2004 at Stradbally Hall in Stradbally, County Laois, Ireland. It is organised by Pod Concerts and Festival Republic, who purchased the majority shareholding in ...

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 BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It specialises in modern popular music and current chart hits throughout the day. The station provides alternative genres at night, including electronica, dance, ...

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 An infection is the invasion of tissues by pathogens, their multiplication, and the reaction of host tissues to the infectious agent and the toxins they produce. An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable di ...

. 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 new album was declared finished by Barnes via Twitter on 4 February 2022, and has since been titled: "This Is What We Do". It was released on 2 December 2022.

Commercial use of tracks

The song "Phat Planet" was used in the "Surfers" TV advertisement for Guinness, ranked number one in

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service ...

'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 EA Sports is a division of Electronic Arts that develops and publishes sports video games. Formerly a marketing gimmick of Electronic Arts, in which they tried to imitate real-life sports networks by calling themselves the "EA Sports Network ...

and ''Racedriver GRID'' by

Codemasters The Codemasters Software Company Limited (trade name: Codemasters) is a British video game developer based in Southam, England, which is a subsidiary of American corporation Electronic Arts. Founded by brothers Richard and David Darling in Oct ...

. 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 A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the 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 ''Dragons' Den'' is a reality television program format in which entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to a panel of venture capitalists in the hope of securing investment finance from them. The program originated in 2001 in Japan, where it is k ...

''.

Live performances

In Leftfield's

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

show, the Dutch police were close to arresting the venue sound engineers due to the sound system reaching illegal volumes. At the next concert, in

Belgium Belgium, ; french: Belgique ; german: Belgien officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a country in Northwestern Europe. The country is bordered by the Netherlands to the north, Germany to the east, Luxembourg to the southeast, France to th ...

, 30 people were given refunds after complaining that the sound level was too high, leading to a newspaper headline reading "LEFTFIELD TOO LOUD". In June 1996, while the group was playing at

Brixton Academy Brixton Academy (originally known as the Astoria Variety Cinema, previously known as Carling Academy Brixton, currently named O2 Academy Brixton as part of a sponsorship deal with the O2 brand) is a mid-sized concert venue located in South Wes ...

, the sound system caused dust and plaster to fall from the ceiling; subsequently, the group was banned from ever returning to the venue. The ban however was taken by the band as a ban on the sound system and not themselves, which was confirmed when Leftfield returned to Brixton again on Saturday 20 May 2000. 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

Soundtracks and various compilations

*From the '' Shallow Grave'' soundtrack :"Shallow Grave" (Featuring Christopher Eccleston) :"Release the Dubs" *From the ''

Hackers A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who uses their technical knowledge to achieve a goal or overcome an obstacle, within a computerized system by non-standard means. Though the term ''hacker'' has become associated in popu ...

'' soundtrack: :"Inspection (Check One)" :"Open Up" (featuring John Lydon) *From the '' wipE'out"'' soundtrack :"Afro Ride" (from the EP

) *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

) *From the '' Go'' soundtrack :"Swords" (featuring Nicole Willis) (Original Version) *From '' The Beach'' soundtrack :"Snakeblood" *From the ''

Vanilla Sky ''Vanilla Sky'' is a 2001 American science fiction thriller film directed, written, and co-produced by Cameron Crowe. It is an English-language remake of Alejandro Amenábar's 1997 Spanish film '' Open Your Eyes'', which was written by Amenábar ...

'' soundtrack :"Afrika Shox" *From '' Beast Machines'', and ''

'' '' F1 2000'' :" Phat Planet" *From '' Lara Croft: Tomb Raider'' :"Song of Life"