In the 10 years that Paul Daley and Neil Barnes have been making music, the duo that makes up Leftfield claim they haven’t gotten rid of one piece of equipment.

“[There are] bits and pieces all over the place,” acknowledges Barnes. “You rediscover things. I would never get rid of [any of] it. It’s like selling your records – you always regret it. They sit upstairs and one day we will get them out and make mad string sounds on it. Or put them through another effects unit and the whole sound becomes new again, it gets a new lease on life. It’s like putting a new clutch in your car, suddenly it’s a new car; we’re off again.”

It’s been four years since the guys in Leftfield left their most indelible mark on the music scene with their classic work, Leftism (Columbia). Timeless and unique for its mix of tuneful techno, Leftism spawned many an imitator, but it has yet to be duplicated, even by Leftfield themselves. Rhythm And Stealth is their end-of-century offering. Where Leftism experimented with the deconstruction of preconceptions of dance utilizing the vocals of noted rock singers like John Lydon, Rhythm And Stealth goes back to basics with a higher concentration on electronics, coupled with the pointedly soul vocals of Afrika Bambaataa and Roots Manuva, among others, for an added organic element.

“We felt we had to work with [vocalists] that perhaps people weren’t expecting us to work with,” reflects Daley. “It’s a tough thing for us to follow [Leftism]. We did what we felt was right. We didn’t want to sound like anyone else and, in a way, we wanted to get away from the sound of [Leftism] (a) because it was such a long time ago and (b) because we felt so many people had emulated what we’d done. We had to give this album a new sound. Some people that liked the last album aren’t going to like this new album – that’s the reality. We’re our own worst enemy sometimes, but that’s the way we are.”

Cubase on Macintosh and 64-track ProTools with all the effects inside the computer were largely responsible for the sound on Rhythm And Stealth, which is the primary difference in approach, as Leftism was created with Sound Designer. According to Barnes, a recording problem developed that was due to the ProTools-Cubase combination.

“When you start running Cubase as the front end and ProTools as the back end of the system, often the MIDI messes up and you can’t get the timing,” says Barnes. “We’ve got lots of effects units that we use in the computer and everything is real-time. You can’t overcome that sort of timing problem, you just have to live with it. They run on different timing. Cubase will say 140 BPM is one speed and ProTools will say it’s another speed. If you're running them both together, the only way is to record all your parts in MIDI files and then put them in ProTools. That limits what you can do, but ProTools is the future.”

Everything Leftfield works with is sampled (using Akai units that include the S950 and 3200XL), whether it’s created by themselves or taken from elsewhere. The master keyboard in the equation is the Nord Lead, which is also new to the group and purchased after the creation of Leftism. “What we tend to do is make sounds ourselves and put them through special effects units, which are unique,” says Barnes. “Everyone’s got a few pieces of equipment they’ve discovered, which they keep using. In England there’s a lot of little companies knocking out pieces of equipment, which are just special things you discover that you incorporate into your sound.”

Says Daley: “In a way we’ve gone back to a more underground vibe, more pure. It was a harder route, but that’s what we decided to do. Things have really changed because this music has become the mainstream and what people are hearing every day, whereas before it was more underground and fresh. If you didn’t get the first album, you probably wouldn’t get what we’re trying to do now. We didn’t wanted to drift away from the fact that we really just want to make music. It’s the most important thing and I think sometimes hype tends to overtake music. Hence the title of the title of the album, Rhythm And Stealth, stealth meaning to act in secrecy, kind of sums up what we’ve been doing.”