Leila

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London, United Kingdom

Leila Arab, musician, producer, recording artist, moved to London after the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran. She started recording for Rephlex Records her own style of heavily IDM-influenced soul/ambient music. Described by DJ Gilles Peterson as ‘the best of what Britain has to offer in the cutting edge of music’, composer/producer Leila has collaborated and toured live with Bjork, been featured on Plaid ‘s Not For Threes debut, and remixed the likes of Acacia under her experimental Gramatix alter-ego.

On the title track of her debut release, the Don’t Fall Asleep EP, an eerie treated voice was juxtaposed against corrupted funk. Her debut album was recorded in her bedroom and issued on Rephlex Records in 1998. Drawing on techno, funk, soul, electronica, hip-hop and classical, Like Weather was created in the same arbitrary way that most people buy and listen to music - that is, with little sense of genre boundaries. At one point, the album was actually rumoured to be a lost Prince recording. The album Like Weather is a widely respected milestone and defines a period of London urban music.

A single, ‘Feeling’, suggested a dysfunctional All Saints. Other tracks drew on the grandeur of Andrea Parker, the shiftiness of Tricky, the sonic perversity of the Aphex Twin and the anal, painstaking attention to sound of hip-hop. ‘All the tracks are quite intense, really,’ admits Leila of her recordings, ‘I take what I do seriously. I try to make moving music.’ Luca Santucci, Donna Paul and Leila’s sister Roya supplied vocals on the album.
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