The indomitable Leyland Kirby returns two years since his memory mangling and essential 'Sadly, The Future Is No Longer What It Was' LPs, offering the first in a series of four 12"s entitled 'Intrigue & Stuff' - channeling some of the weirdest, most discomforting and downright essential music we've heard this year. The title may refer to a Martin Hannett quote regarding Factory Records - "There's an awful lot of incest that goes on" mused Hannet, "Intrigue and stuff". Or it may be a succinct description of Kirby's gestalt oeuvre. Either way, these six tracks expand his mottled vision of the future into surreal new territories, from a John Denver cover to the slopped & screwed raver dreamstate of 'Video 2000'. It's the latter that will likely induce the largest shock to anyone familiar with his previous work. There's a hint of distorted mischief, but applied to some kind of detuned and discombobulated New Age jack beat, wandering the keys over the slimiest bass slurry, maybe like a possessed Roedelius attempting to corner a spiritualist rave niche for the elderly. We've played this track over and again and it floors us every time. It sounds like nothing we've ever heard before, which really is saying something. The record's other towering achievement is a Soviet-sized passage of slow fired and epic synth architecture 'Live For The Future, Long For The Past' which was recently used to close a two-part BBC documentary dealing with one of the deepest questions there are - what is everything, and what is nothing? But that's not to discount 'Ruined Visions', a majestically ambitious remake of John Denver's heart-hitting 'Annie's Song' sounding like it was etched on a ceramic synth in the dead of a Friedrichshain night. Three more equally disturbing and enchanting pieces make up the rest of the LP, awaiting your discovery. Like a Sicilian Casu Marzu, Leyland's variety is fermented to point of extreme potency and should be considered an exceptional delicacy, if not an acquired taste. Unmissable
