Dr Leo Chadburn
leochadburn.bsky.social
Dr Leo Chadburn
@leochadburn.bsky.social
Composer, performer, writer. FKA Simon Bookish. 🏳️‍🌈

www.leochadburn.com
leochadburn.bandcamp.com
Pinned
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-...
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.
New Music Show - Leo Chadburn's Listen List - BBC Sounds
Tom Service talks to Leo Chadburn about his listening, plus premieres from Donaueschingen.
www.bbc.co.uk
November 10, 2025 at 1:52 PM
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...
Purposeful Listening 1
Beginning/continuing, place/language, tree/mobile, bigness/detail
purlis.substack.com
October 23, 2025 at 11:38 AM
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...
October 16, 2025 at 3:31 PM
"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/...
New Music Show - Strange Loops - BBC Sounds
Cutting-edge and experimental new music in live performance, plus interviews and features.
www.bbc.co.uk
September 23, 2025 at 11:53 AM
Thanks so much for including me - a great list of last month's releases, as ever, from Peter Margasak here:
This month's edition of the contemporary music column Bandcamp Daily is out with music by Leo Chadburn, Zachary Good, Sarah Nemtsov, Katie Porter, Judith Wegmann, Julia Eckhardt, Marc Sabat, Caiman Gilmore, Giuseppe Ielasi & Jack Sheen, and Mattie Barbier. daily.bandcamp.com/best-contemp...
The Best Contemporary Classical Music on Bandcamp, August 2025
Our guide to the month’s crucial contemporary classical releases.
daily.bandcamp.com
September 9, 2025 at 2:43 PM
Reposted by Dr Leo Chadburn
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 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.
www.thetonearm.com
September 8, 2025 at 12:45 AM
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
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...
leochadburn.bandcamp.com
September 5, 2025 at 9:44 AM
Thanks to The Wire (500th issue published this week!) for these words about my new album:
September 3, 2025 at 12:35 PM
Really nice that my new album is in amongst the best albums this month... thank you thank you!
Everything you’ll find here, as well as all the other excellent music we’ve covered at tQ this month, will also be compiled into an hours-long playlist exclusive to our subscribers...

Music of the Month: The Best Albums and Tracks of August 2025

buff.ly/7zI1l4p
August 29, 2025 at 12:24 PM
Reposted by Dr 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...
August 8, 2025 at 3:05 PM
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.
From to getting his grandma into Björk to the golden years of electroclash, Dale Cornish takes Jennifer Lucy Allan through the soundtrack of his life via 13 key albums

Life is a Jumble Sale: #DaleCornish’s Favourite Albums

buff.ly/KbwuVjF
August 13, 2025 at 11:49 AM
Reposted by Dr Leo Chadburn
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
www.musicomh.com
August 8, 2025 at 7:02 AM
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...
August 8, 2025 at 3:05 PM
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-...
August 8, 2025 at 12:07 PM
Reposted by Dr Leo Chadburn
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...
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
thequietus.com
August 8, 2025 at 9:38 AM
Great review (by Tom Bolton) of the new album (which comes out on Friday) on The Quietus today. Thank you!
'Sleep… is powered by narration, words murmured into a microphone like the latest of late night radio: the spirit of Chris Morris’ Blue Jam and Delia Derbyshire’s Inventions for Radio.'

Leo Chadburn - Sleep in the Shadow of the Alternator

buff.ly/PXVnzoC
@leochadburn.bsky.social
August 5, 2025 at 2:52 PM
Great show here! Thanks for including new track of mine...
Séance archived & seething with outliers & eidolons including Kenyon Hopkins @alexandertucker.bsky.social@leochadburn.bsky.social ZAHGURIM Lee Underwood Dane Law Mura Oka @greyfrequency.bsky.social Cerys Hafana Fhunyue Gao | Sven Kacirek & the unlike. Hear: bit.ly/46DWqom
August 2, 2025 at 8:11 AM
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-...
August 1, 2025 at 8:40 AM
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/...
July 28, 2025 at 9:16 AM
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-...
July 21, 2025 at 9:07 AM
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-...
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.
www.eventbrite.co.uk
July 1, 2025 at 9:06 AM
Also... the new album is very, very nearly finished...
June 26, 2025 at 10:32 AM
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...
June 26, 2025 at 10:30 AM
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.
June 12, 2025 at 2:13 PM