In 2005, the same year that he released his French touch classic The Upper Cuts, Alan Braxe supercharged an already-perfect song by remixing Annie’s “Heartbeat.” Eighteen years later, the producer and Norwegian singer unite again for the upcoming Upper Cuts reissue. Their joint single, “Never Coming Back,” is a feather-light disco jam and stone-cold put-down at once; Annie struts cooly down a glassy hallway while a nimble guitar groove beckons the listener to keep pace. Not that they should get too close: If Annie’s original appeal was of a naturally shy person speaking plainly from the heart, she’s glamorously inaccessible on “Never Coming Back.” “Everybody needs somebody/I need somebody too/Just not you-u-u,” she taunts through vocoder at some lovelorn fool. The track is paradoxically inviting and icy, an unambiguously final kiss-off with a groove that could last until the end of time.
