DJ Ivan Smagghe and producer Arnaud Rebotini have stated their aim of making “electronic music that is not afraid to scare people”, and revived their mid-’90s Black Strobe project accordingly. It’s the perfect name for the duo’s dark, industriogoth disco, which draws on a shared past watching alt. rock bands in Parisian clubs, and is a million kilometres away from both the feelgood, filtered house of Daft Punk and Air’s woozy electro-pop. The Chemical Sweet Girl EP tacks confidently between Front 242, LFO and LCD Soundsystem, but there are echoes of Joy Division on “Innerstrings” and of New Order on “Me And Madonna”, the deadly robotic cool of which should guarantee clubland acclaim the second the needle drops.
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