Album:    Leftism
Artist:   Leftfield
Label:    Hard Hands (Sony Music)
Released: 1995-01-30
Summary:  Instantly accessible yet keeps you coming back.  A classic.

I can almost imagine that Leftism was designed to be an ambitious
showcase for the delay effect, and if it was ever intended as such,
it certainly succeeds at making the delay seem like a valuable
instrument in its own right.

The music on this album is a melting pot of different styles and
influences, fused together by dance beats, Roland TB-303 basslines,
luscious pads, and the ever-present delays.  The rhythms are usually
very simple, based around the 4/4 time signature and a pulsating
synthetic kick drum.  While this should make the album become tedious
very quickly, it somehow manages to instead make it instantly
accessible while still standing up to repeated listening.  Perhaps
it is the mixture of different genres that keeps me coming back to
this album, or maybe it's Leftfield's use of vocals.

It seems that, for whatever reason, songs work better than instrumental
music in modern records.  Maybe people like the familiar sound of
another voice, or perhaps the images invoked by a good lyric help
emphasise the emotion invoked by the accompanying music.  Whatever
the reason, a sung lyric (as opposed to a single line repeated again
and again, or no vocal at all) can really make a piece of dance music
stand out from the crowd.  Leftfield must have known this, because
they included plenty of songs on this album.  Original and Inspection
(Check One), for example, are amongst the most catchy tracks on
Leftism, and probably many people's favourites.

It seems odd to me that dance music is often instrumental.  The fact
that the people who compose it are seldom singers opens up an
opportunity that seems almost unique to the genre: being able to
pick a different singer for each song.  Leftfield certainly took
advantage of this freedom.  Earl Sixteen, Papa Dee, Djum Djum, Toni
Halliday, Danny Red, John Lydon and Lemn Sissay all provide vocals
for this album.

The individual tracks are nice, but Leftism is a good example of the
whole being greater than the sum of its parts.  This is an album
that you can listen to all the way through without a pause.  This
isn't just due to the quality of the music, but also the pace of
each track and the order they appear in.  After the first two cuts
reel you in, Melt calms you back down again, giving you a rest before
the album builds up momentum again.  Melt isn't just filler either,
and has found its way on many chillout compilations as well as fitting
perfectly into Leftism.  Once you're feeling sufficiently relaxed,
the tension slowly rises all the way to the climactic Open Up, before
calming you down again with 21st Century Poem.

I'd recommend this album to anyone who likes dance music, and at
least one or two people who don't.  Although it seems very simple,
this is perhaps somewhat misleading: few albums keep you coming back
for more as often as this one does.  It's a deceptively humble
masterpiece.
