Taken up by fashionistas whom she would consider worthless and witless, judging by recent interviews, the New Zealander Pip Brown has made a debut album to withstand fair-weather attention. A strong lure for the catwalk crowd is Brown’s adeptness at pushing their retro buttons: the record is awash with the sonic squiggles, thumping beats and lethal chord sequences of classic 1980s chart pop and electro. It’s what she does with them that takes the breath away. Each of the 13 tracks has a chorus to kill for, and Brown’s voice - Kim Wilde meets PJ Harvey - features an end-of-phrase exhalation that is sex on a microphone stand. Songs such as My Delirium, Crazy World, Paris Is Burning and the new single, Dusk Till Dawn, vie for the prize of 2008’s most sublime electro moment. Don’t let the stick insects put you off.

Modular/Island MODCD98

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