Dr Leo Chadburn

New Music Show - Strange Loops - BBC Sounds Cutting-edge and experimental new music in live performance, plus interviews and features.

"We’re in a world of haunted psychogeography here, all the more disturbing because it’s all real: the drones, the hum, Leo Chadburn’s voice, the bells, the recordings that sound like the actuality of a recent but imagined past…" www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Thank you so much! Wonderful to hear that.

Thanks so much for including me - a great list of last month's releases, as ever, from Peter Margasak here:

Leo Chadburn Broadcasts a Radiophonic Lullaby of Decline The experimental composer's album 'Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator' transforms his childhood memories of Coalville's mines and factories into a dreamlike narrative about the East Midlands' vanished industry.

Experimental composer Leo Chadburn's album 'Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator' transforms his childhood memories of Coalville's mines and factories into a dreamlike narrative about the East Midlands' vanished industry.

Leo Chadburn Broadcasts a Radiophonic Lullaby of Industrial Decline:

Leo Chadburn Leo Chadburn (London, UK) FKA Simon Bookish is a composer of experimental and 'avant-pop' music, vocalist and writer. His unpredictable work includes music for classical ensembles, dramatic solo perfo...

I apologise for adding to the #BandcampFriday deluge, but if you'd like to buy my records, today is ideal. I know the very idea of paying for music is withering away these days, but as a 100% independent, DIY musician, your support is a big deal. I'm hugely thankful for it: leochadburn.bandcamp.com

Oh ha ha! Thank you. X

Lists can be poetic as well as functional. Naming in that direct way conveys a sense of concreteness. Leo Chadburn's "Magic Flora Of The East Midlands", the second of four tracks, starts with a spoken catalogue of plants, minimally glossed with healing or magical qualities traditionally attributed to each, while Latin botanical names are intoned by a monastic voice. This curiously engrossing piece also incorporates a list of traditional occupations - wheelwright, ostler, blacksmith, and so on. Words can generate extensive webs of association, and through time they acquire a patina of accrued meaning. Through texts which engage with landscape, regional history, perception and personal recollection, Chadburn invites us to experience the chemistry of language, its precipitation of imagery, embellished with field recordings and finely judged instrumental and electronic enhancements. An evocative, sonically engaging and thought-provoking work.

Thanks to The Wire (500th issue published this week!) for these words about my new album:

Really nice that my new album is in amongst the best albums this month... thank you thank you!

Oh, thank you!

Leo Chadburn Broadcasts a Radiophonic Lullaby of Decline The experimental composer's album 'Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator' transforms his childhood memories of Coalville's mines and factories into a dreamlike narrative about the East Midlands' vanis...

ICYMI... an interview with me here about the new album (and other matters): www.thetonearm.com/leo-chadburn...

Thanks so much to The Tonearm for doing this interview with me, about the new album (out today), why the radio is important, the East Midlands, and a belated postscript to the Simon Bookish project: www.thetonearm.com/leo-chadburn...

This is a really excellent choice of records, notwithstanding one of them being by me. Also, Dale's new album is his best yet and you should check it out - unnverving and hilarious, ferocious and intimate, red-raw drum machines and saucy vocals.

Leo Chadburn – Sleep In The Shadow Of The Alternator An important document, this deeply respectful set of audio postcards moves between the past and the future, forming a work that assumes symphonic dimensions

Leo Chadburn – Sleep In The Shadow Of The Alternator | An important document, this deeply respectful set of audio postcards moves between the past and the future, forming a work that assumes symphonic dimensions

Thank you!

🖤

Thank you so much Gerry!

Thanks so much to The Tonearm for doing this interview with me, about the new album (out today), why the radio is important, the East Midlands, and a belated postscript to the Simon Bookish project: www.thetonearm.com/leo-chadburn...

The new album is out now! leochadburn.bandcamp.com/album/sleep-...

Leo Chadburn – Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator | The Quietus The composer (fka Simon Bookish) evokes visionary worlds from the ruins of Leicestershire's coal mining and power-generating past

Excellent review by ‪@drtombolton.bsky.social‬ of today's new @leochadburn.bsky.social LP: "...draws on a tradition of poets writing the landscapes that fill their minds. reminiscent of Ivor Cutler, Alan Moore... a perfectly realised work and visionary triumph."

thequietus.com/quietus-revi...

Great review (by Tom Bolton) of the new album (which comes out on Friday) on The Quietus today. Thank you!

Great show here! Thanks for including new track of mine...

Cover of the CD version of Leo Chadburn, 'Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator': two spheres of steel float in a black void, one glows red, green, blue.

Inner sleeve of the CD version of Leo Chadburn, 'Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator'.

It's #BandcampFriday, which means today is an ideal day to pre-order 'Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator', (out next Friday, 8th). As ever, your support for my work is massively appreciated; album sales enable me to keep on releasing music. Thank you! X leochadburn.bandcamp.com/album/sleep-...

Thanks to Elizabeth Alker for previewing my new album on BBC Radio 3's 'Unclassified' last night! "..the narrative just keeps you gripped all the way through, and the electronics carry you along beautifully...” 🙌 Listen again here (album preview is 4:15 into the show): www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

Oh thanks! I don't want to Dunning Kruger myself too much though: I am a "enthusiastic very amateur" lepidopterist. There's a few immediately unmistakeable species - Jersey Tiger, luckily, even when photographed from the unflattering underneath, couldn't be anything else. Hope you're well Josie! X

Hello! Apologies I haven't looked at BlueSky all day. It's a Jersey Tiger.

Leo Chadburn, "Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator" album artwork. Two iron spheres float in a black void. As they touch, one sphere glows red, green and blue.

I’m excited to announce my new album, ‘Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator’, which comes out on Friday 8th August. This album has been a long time in the making: it's dear to my heart. I really hope it resonates with you too. Info and pre-orders here: leochadburn.bandcamp.com/album/sleep-...

Music We'd Like to Hear - Summer 2025.2 The 20th annual summer concert series of new, neglected and unfamiliar music, in St Mary at Hill in the City of London.

This Friday (4 July) - great concert series Music We'd Like to Hear continues; programe includes little piano piece by me written 25 years ago (!), alongside music by Tom Johnson, Cassandra Miller and more.... www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/music-wed-...

Also... the new album is very, very nearly finished...

Album artwork for Leo Chadburn's "The Subject / The Object": a square piece of machinery, made of grey metal and mirrors, with a single on/off switch (actually a folded overhead projector) against a pink background.

5 years ago today I released my album The Subject / The Object: two 20-minute tracks: a sprawling monologue and an amorphous drone choir. It’s an intense one, but I’d love you to hear it. There's about a dozen tapes left, if you’d like to buy a physical copy:
leochadburn.bandcamp.com/album/the-su...

Tam tam on a stand in the studio, with XY microphones and boots abandoned in front of it.

I'm working hard finishing a new album. A dreamlike monologue with some delicate music. Quite personal, so I'm slighty afriad of putting it out into the world, but also excited for you to hear it later this Summer. Tam tam features heavily on one track. Had to take my noisy boots off in the studio.