Little Boots, Arecibo
A brilliantly mixed-up girl makes a brilliantly mixed-up record
Little Boots — otherwise known as Victoria Hesketh — occupies a uniquely jumbled sonic space. As a teenager growing up in Blackpool, she shuttled between kitschy Eurotrance clubs and rehearsals with assorted punk outfits while studying classical music and making money from jazz. That wide-ranging mix is carried onto her debut EP, Arecibo. As she sings in a potentially autobiographical line on "Stuck On Repeat", one of the featured tracks, "She's a mixed-up girl in mixed-up world, and you know she don't mean any harm."
Produced by Joe Goddard of Hot Chip and Greg Kurstin of The Bird and the Bee plus remixes by Fake Blood and Ebola, the very mutant Arecibo is appropriately reminiscent of the disco-not-disco, punk-funk and electro-funk sound that came out of the punk-disco exchange of the late 1970s and early 1980s. "Stuck On Repeat" is built around a synth line that echoes — but doesn't quite copy — the oscillating Moog of Donna's Summer's "I Feel Love". Slowed to a slur and heavy with effects, the reference blunts the euphoria of disco with a post-disco heaviness. On "Meddle", an attack of thick, distorted synth lines contrasts with improbably melodious vocals in which Little Boots calls out, "Don't meddle with her heart, meddle with her mind, meddle with the things that are inside…" Clearly Hesketh is happiest pursuing a mixed up, deviant destination.
