It’s official – the ‘90s are the new ‘80s, and Charlotte Hatherley’s new solo single is the glorious proof. Okay, they are still some greed-decade echoes in “White,” the first download from the recently released album New Worlds from the former Ash guitarist and current touring instrumentalist for Bat For Lashes. The post-punk riddim driving “White” suggests XTC’s “Making Plans For Nigel” given a garage makeover, or Joy Division’s dark Northern smoldering recast as shambling Glaswegian indie. Hatherley truly shows her ‘90s stripes, however, when she starts singing.

On the verse, Hatherley’s lightly disaffected verse vocals recall Liz Phair’s 1994 classic Exile In Guyville, as well as Tanya Donnelly’s melodic yet defiant work in the Breeders and Belly. When the chorus stumbles evocatively into a slightly incongruous disco beat, however, Hatherley goes down another path of Clinton-era nostalgia, evoking the feather-lite vocals of The Cardigans and St. Etienne, her detached girlish coo giving lines like “I love it when you take me in the white” extra erotic frisson. Hatherley’s made a career of ingenuous, right-on-time references – her first solo single was titled “Kim Wilde,” after all, and her video for “White” stylishly deconstructs abstract expressionist/color field painting. These roots from previous eras belie her status caught between indie lifer and new “it” girl: she joined Ash as an eighteen-year-old in 1997, seeing the dawn of that decade evolve into the 2000s, yet “White” proves she’s up on her current retro trends enough to create something perfectly au courant in its nostalgia.