In 2021, Leftfield were midway through making a new album when Neil Barnes started experiencing “very loose bowel movements” and feeling quite uncomfortable. “I’ve never been one of those blokes who ignores warning signs,” he says. So he went to the doctor, who did some blood tests, couldn’t find a thing but was troubled. Barnes explains: “He said, ‘I’m not happy about this. I want you to have a colonoscopy.’”
Ironically, given that Leftfield were one of the most influential dance acts of the 1990s, Barnes found the medical procedure – in which a tiny camera is inserted in the rectum, the results shown on screen – like “being in a club. You’re given some drugs and then it’s like, ‘Here we go round the corner and the lights are on the walls and … whoosh!” he chuckles. “It’s all bright and sparkly.” But then he glanced at the screen and saw a huge growth on his bowel. “I was thinking, ‘Oh, that shouldn’t be there, should it?’”
