Leftism

Neil Barnes and Paul Daley did not make Leftism and then look for singles. The singles were already a career. Song of Life is dated 30 November 1992. Open Up, with John Lydon, came out on 1 November 1993 and reached number 13 in Britain. The album followed on 30 January 1995, on their own Hard Hands label and on Columbia, recorded at Rollover Studios in London between 1992 and 1995. America got it on 15 August that year. Original came out on 13 March 1995. Afro-Left on 24 July. Release the Pressure, rebuilt for the album, returned as a single on 8 January 1996. Release the Pressure and Song of Life had already existed in earlier forms. The album is where the early singles get a long home.

Lydon on Open Up is the moment people still quote, because a former Sex Pistol barking over a house track is a good photograph. The rest of the record is the reason it holds: progressive house with dub’s weight, tracks that roll on after a chorus would have landed. Earl Sixteen’s voice on the rebuilt Release the Pressure is the other guest fact, a reggae singer inside a London electronic album, which is the same instinct as Horace Andy on Blue Lines and a different city. Hard Hands was their label. Columbia was the licence. The sales figure attached to the album in the public account is above 220,000.

A debut that takes three years of singles to arrive is a specific kind of patience. Barnes and Daley were DJs and producers who kept releasing 12-inches until the 12-inches added up to a statement. Leftism is that statement. Play Open Up if you want the famous collision. Play the long instrumentals if you want the actual group: two people at Rollover, unwilling to finish a track just because a radio edit was due.

Sources

• Leftism: Hard Hands and Columbia, UK release 30 January 1995, US release 15 August 1995, Rollover Studios, single dates, Open Up at UK number 13, sales above 220,000.
• Discogs, Leftfield — Leftism, Hard Hands HANDLP2D, UK, 30 January 1995.