TigaSexor

Well, it was long time coming. Despite having been around for what now seems like years - as a remixer to the likes of Felix Da Housecat, Cabaret Voltaire and Fischerspooner, working alongside Zyntherius for the mighty 'Sunglasses At Night', and so many appearances at Trash that the term guest DJ no longer seems appropriate - it has taken three years for 'Sexor' to finally reach completion.

In some ways that may actually be a good thing. Back in the day, it was hard to know who to take seriously and who was just along for the ride, in it for the fame and out for kicks rather than to actually do anything as banal as add substance to the musical cannon of the genre. As such, Fischerspooner were often ridiculed and dismissed as thrill-seeking one-trick party animals and Peaches was hailed as nothing less than a spokesman for a new generation.

In the four years since the cold heart of electroclash not only seems to have warmed but also gain the ability to emote more than a superficial desire to buy Prada shoes, take coke and act as if you're too good to be seen to be having fun at Nag Nag Nag. Not only that but now that most of the feckless chancers have abandoned what they believed to be a sinking ship, it's possible to the more fresh and vital acts to stand out from the thinning crowd once again. And in such an environment, Tiga stands out like a beacon.

Given how fast music evolves and trends come and go, it's almost surprising how much 'Sexor' sounds like it could have been released at any point in the last six years. Had this album come out in 2000, it would have been proclaimed as groundbreaking, in 2006 it's merely very, very good. Maybe it's a result of having spent so long in gestation - 'Pleasure From The Bass' was recorded in 2002 and originally saw the light of day, or at least the shiny chrome-plated neonlicht of nightclubs, in 2004 - but when you consider that this has been spawned by a genre that wasn't expected to survive a year without imploding, Tiga has pulled a masterstroke by managing to divorce this album from the vagaries of fashion to deliver something that, if not exactly timeless, sounds just as at home on your stereo right now as it would have a few years ago and will still do so in a couple of years time. Just as Kratfwerk's gleaming exterior housed an emotive, progressive soul, the pulsating rhythms of 'You're Gonna Want Me' and the incessant motorik of 'Good As Gold' conceal the sort of humanity that electroclash's detractors could never have expected to find lurking within.

In fact, along with Fischerspooner's 2005 album, 'Odyssey', 'Sexor' is proof that, far from being dead and buried as many had predicted and hoped, not only is there life in electroclash, it seems that the genre may in such rude health that a resurrection may not be that far off.