A good principle, I think, for most musical situations: it sounds good when there is an arrangement: "an arrangement is when someone stops playing".

Really nice to be asked to appear on BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show over the weekend, to talk about three tracks I love as part of their new 'Listen List' spot. Listen again here: www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002lnkd I'm on at 46:05 into the show.

Strong recommend for Tim Rutherford-Johnson's new Substack (especially for "new music" people). Great, insightful writing, as always. First post delves into music by Mark Fell, Michael Finnissy and Me: purlis.substack.com/p/purposeful...

Wonderful and perceptive writing about "Sleep in the Shadow..." from Tim Rutherford-Johnson here, touching on place, Englishness and Russell Hoban... Thank you! johnsonsrambler.wordpress.com/2025/10/15/t...

"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/...

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

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:

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

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!

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

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-...

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...

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/...

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-...

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...

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...

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.

Nice to see my name among the credits on the new Pulp album (released today), alongside a whole load of brilliant friends and amazing musicians. Delighted to be even a tiny part to this.

Brilliant vocal ensemble The Marian Consort appeared on the 🇩🇪 radio over the weekend, performing "Flower Dictionary" by me (oder „Blumenlexikon“, which is clearly a better title). It's 1:13:40 into the programme, but listen to them doing late Renaissance music too: so gorgeous...

Surprised and flattered that an old tweet of mine is quoted in Ian Penman's new book on Erik Satie ("Three Piece Suite" on Fitzcarraldo Editions)! Also it's my only remaining tweet, since I've deleted and abandoned that awful website now.

View from the vocal booth: Currently finishing making a new album. If you don't own my previous album(s), today ( #BandcampFriday ) is an ideal day to buy one. Everything goes towards funding the next one, on my tiny little DIY record label. Hugely grateful for the support: leochadburn.bandcamp.com

From the archive, twenty years ago (Plan B Magazine, 2005): "Simon Bookish stands onstage in a buttercup yellow jumpsuit that he made himself from a pair of curtains... He looks like a spaceship raybeam poured into a pair of sex wellies...

Leafcutter John in surround sound at City next week - come down! www.citystgeorges.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

I finally got round to watching "The Substance" the other week. I was so annoyed by the scene with the old man in the diner. It should have been elliptical, mysterious, probably no dialogue. Instead, his identity is signposted to the viewer so heavy-handedly, I felt my intelligence draining out...

If you'd like to support my work, today is a great day to do it #BandcampFriday... My music is released on my own label - total staff = me alone. I can't complain, but it is tough to keep on making things on a shoestring. Any purchases always massively appreciated. leochadburn.bandcamp.com

I have on occasion bought a book based on how handsome the cover is, such as this one (I was also intrigued by the idea of 'science fiction verse'). Unfortunately, it contains what I believe to be the worst poetry ever written.

We're putting on this gig on Friday (21st Feb) with Weston Olencki and Laura Cocks (launching their album FATHM), two excellent experimental musicians from the USA who I am sure some of you know. Please come to this gig! Sign up here: www.city.ac.uk/news-and-eve...

Iggy Pop played this beautiful Nancy Wilson song on 6music yesterday. Such a stunning arrangement and vocal performance. The kind of thing you pause to listen to with your breath held. But then Iggy (maybe with help of producers hmm?) did this magical segue... www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2vP...

Nostalgia! I released this 20 years ago: METAL HORSE was part of Tomlab Records' "Alphabet" series of thirty 7" singles (one for each letter of the German alphabet). In case you'd like to hear this lo-fi, anxious, synth pop curiosity again, it's on Bandcamp: leochadburn.bandcamp.com/album/metal-...

Went through a phase of making remixes & really enjoying it. Haven't been asked to do one for a long time (I'm a bit less pop these days). Here's one I think turned out well: my version of my pal Owen Pallett's "Keep The Dog Quiet" - now 15 years old. Nice woodblocks: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lAGP...

Russell Hoban's centenary is today. Here's the "sexy glockenspiel" passages from his 1974 novel Kleinzeit. Like everything else he wrote, it's a book that's uniquely funny, deeply weird, and completely unsettling. #Hoban100

"Iconic", the now most meaningless word in the English language, here being used to describe a venue that isn't even open yet. So iconically iconic.

Faithfull was also my favourite interpreter of Brecht/Weill songs. Listen to her version of "Ballad Of The Soldier's Wife"; her delivery of the climax, when it shifts into the major key, is completely chilling - she makes it seethe: www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8kd...

Sorry to hear Marianne Faithfull is no longer with us. 'Broken English' is a unique record - ice cold production, but that VOICE, full of invective, fire, heartbreak, experience. No one else ever sounded like that. Her version of "Ballad of Lucy Jordan" is almost too much to bear: despair & dignity.

Although it's 10th January, I'm heartened to see my favourite local Christmas display is still up. So much festive spirit.

I like an animal with a scientific name "so good they named it twice", e.g. Rattus rattus, Vulpes vulpes, Troglodytes troglodytes, etc. So nice to learn that the Northern lynx (in the news today on account of being released and captured in the Scottish Highlands) is named thrice: Lynx lynx lynx.

Thanks so much to Peter Margasak for writing such beautiful and generous words about my album here. Do check out his trilogy of end-of-2024 posts: so many wonderful things to discover...

Here’s some things I did in 2024 that felt worthwhile and good. Rest assured, many unworthwhile and bad things happened this year too, but I'm omitting those. Love to you all, hope you have a decent NYE! January 2024: Did another gig with old friend Patrick Wolf - reunited after 20 years...

My album 'The Primordial Pieces' is included in Bandcamp's Best Contemporary Classical of 2024 list. Thanks to Peter Margasak for the beautiful words about it. Take a look at the full article here (I find myself alongside some of my own favourite releases this year):

In the studio yesterday, adding some choral vocals to a mystery album with the Elysian Collective. Very exciting to be a small part of this one, coming out next year...

Doing a little seminar at the Royal College of Music yesterday. Talked about my own work, with digressions into ventriloquism, radio drama, the 'vocalic body', & the inspiration of Robert Ashley, Susan Hiller, Michel Chion & supermarket checkouts. Loads of amazing questions from students.