U&I Warp***

Leila Arab has always displayed a strong, willing hand when it comes to collaborations, having worked with Björk, Martina Topley Bird, Terry Hall, Matthew Barney and many others. For Leila's fourth album, it's Matt Sims, Berlin-based performance artist, vocalist and musician (and recent collaborator on The Knife's extraordinary opera), who's in the frame. Sims's voice provide the detached, edgy human touch to the songs, while Leila gets the machines spinning and spitting with great gusto. What the duo produce is a whirlwind of dark, intense, industrial, often stern soundscapes that accentuate the more alien side of Sims's cool, icy, strangely soulful vocals. As experimental rides go, tracks Of One, All of Thisand Wecome to Your Lifeperfectly catch the punk rock motives and methods of the pair, especially in the power and occasional fury of Leila's mechanical machinations. See warp.net/leila

Download tracks: Of One, Wecome to Your Life