Leftfield made an immense contribution to the soundtrack of my early 90s. I still class the period of 1990 to 1995 as the best half decade of my life, for so many reasons. Many of the friends i made during that stage of my life are still very close. We share a common ground that has been very rarely matched since.
My love of this album has grown even more over the years as i truly appreciate how this was such a groundbreaking piece for its time. Leftfield were one of the first of the new breed of dance / electronic acts to get past the single stages and release an album that people would actually come off the dance floor and listen to in a home environment, in it’s entirety.
I think in an eye opening way at the time, this album and a couple more that will also be featuring in my 50, made people, including the music press and critics, realise that this new form of dance / electronic / rave music was here to stay and was not just a passing fad. These were real acts who could get past the sweaty dance floor stage and command a place on the average person’s coffee table and in the charts.
I still occasionally get offered second hand vinyl copies of the original pressing of this album, and you would not believe how many will be party battered, have hot rock burns on their sleeves and the vinyl be played to absolute death by a multitude of different owners down through the years. If pieces of 12 inch vinyl could talk, this particular LP would tell many’s a tale of psychedelic, afterdark shenanigans.
The memories locked within these tracks and the lifelong friends i made whilst playing this album will stay with me forever, and the reactions i’ve had off dance floors over the years from some of their music, are still some of the best i have ever seen and will quite possibly never be matched by another act’s music.
If you’re having a few cans this evening, take some time to reacquaint yourself with the sheer brilliance of the music within this album and what it meant to one of the most important generations in music history.