The records of the Blackpool-based band Section 25, fronted by Larry Cassidy, who has died of a blood clot aged 56, captured the darkness of the post-punk period in the early 1980s. Section 25's melancholic disco-punk brought them comparisons with Joy Division in the music press, which never really understood them. Mistakenly seen as one of the lesser acts on Tony Wilson's Factory Records label, Section 25 were – according to Peter Hook – one of the few groups who actually made a profit for Factory. Their influence has been acknowledged by bands from Sonic Youth to Friendly Fires, who took their name from a Section 25 song.
Born in Blackpool, Larry was educated at St John's Catholic primary school in Poulton-le-Fylde and St Joseph's college in Blackpool. He decided against joining his father's Casdon Toys business and moved to London to study for a law degree. Dropping out after a year, he switched to Maidstone College of Art. On trips to London, he had witnessed the birth pangs of punk, which he was inspired to mix with krautrock and psychedelia to create Section 25 when he moved back to Blackpool. The group's name referred to a clause in the Mental Health Act, which had led to the involuntary detention of Larry's friend the musician Fes Parker.
With his younger brother Vin on drums and Paul Wiggin on guitar, Larry's heartfelt wailing created a highly effective assault, with his bass driving the sound. The band caught the ear of the Joy Division singer Ian Curtis, who co-produced Section 25's first single, Girls Don't Count, released by Factory in 1980. The group's brand of moody post-punk combined the nihilism of the times with Larry's art-school cool. Their debut LP, Always Now (1981), came packaged in an exquisitely designed sleeve.
Wiggin left after the release of Section 25's second album, The Key of Dreams, and Wilson was not able to persuade Johnny Marr to join the band on guitar, so Section 25 reinvented themselves as a moody techno act. Their single Looking from a Hilltop (1984), produced by New Order's Bernard Sumner, was a dark lament that you could dance to, sung by Larry's then wife, Jenny Cassidy. (They married in 1982 and had two children, Nathaniel and Bethany.) Their third album, From the Hip (1984), had a smooth electronic sound.
Vin left the band in 1985. Larry and Jenny completed the album Love & Hate (1988) before Section 25 went into hibernation. Larry worked as a supply teacher in the north-west of England.
Plans to reform the group several years later were stalled when Jenny died from cancer in 2004. The band re-emerged in 2006, releasing a new album, Part-Primitiv, followed by another, Nature + Degree, in 2009. Bethany joined the band on vocals and, with the rediscovery of the post-punk period, they finally started to get the recognition they were due. The Guardian listed From the Hip as one of its "1,000 albums to hear before you die".
The last time I saw Section 25 play, Larry was as eccentric as ever. He looked wizened but had a far more jolly demeanour and childlike enthusiasm than 30 years ago when my band, the Membranes, used to share rehearsal space with them. A new Section 25 album, Retrofit, will be released later this year.
Larry is survived by his partner, Lesley, Nathaniel and Bethany, four brothers and a sister.