Section 25

Retrofit (LTM)
4 stars
Like Little Boots’ switched-on grandparents, the formerly doom-laden
Blackpool-sired runts of the Factory Records litter turned
electro-dancefloor auteurs have produced an infectious swirl of
post-modernist motorik. Recorded before the death of founding member
Larry Cassidy in February this year, this twenty-first century
revisitation of classics including the much sampled ‘Looking From A
Hilltop’ is possessed with an appositely urgent melancholy. Where Ian
Curtis-produced 1980 debut single ‘Girls Don’t Count’ was once a dirge,
here it’s been glossed up to sound not unlike one of Saint Etienne’s
dubbier, clubbier moments, while a remix of ‘Hilltop’ by New Order
drummer Stephen Morris is pure techno flashback. Old-skool on many
levels, then, but pulsatingly sublime nevertheless.

The List, September 2010

ends