Section 25 were formed in Blackpool, Lancashire in November 1977. Initially they were a duo, consisting of brothers Larry Cassidy (bass, vocals) and Vincent Cassidy (drums). In June 1978 they made their live debut, and in November were joined by guitarist Paul Wiggin.
Their debut 7", "Girls Don't Count", was released in July 1980 on Factory Records, produced by Ian Curtis and Rob Gretton of Joy Division. All Section 25 releases would be released through Factory Records until the demise of that label. Their debut LP, Always Now, was released in 1981 and produced by Martin Hannett.
The three-piece group played many gigs in Britain and Northern Europe between 1979 and 1981, both as a headline act and with other Factory Records artists, such as Joy Division, A Certain Ratio, Blurt, The Durutti Column, Crispy Ambulance and New Order. The group also released a self-produced second album, The Key of Dreams. However the original line-up split in 1982 when Paul Wiggin declined to fly to the US for their first North American tour.
Abandoning much of the existing live set, the Cassidy brothers prepared for an upcoming European tour with backing tapes and an extra percussionist. Following a warm-up date in London, the group visited Belgium, Holland and Germany in January 1982 in tandem with Factory labelmates Crispy Ambulance. The band then undertook their first North American tour.
Joined by percussionist Lee Shallcross, Section 25 gradually evolved a more electronic-dance direction, a process which culminated in the album From the Hip and single "Looking From A Hilltop", both released in 1984 and produced by Bernard Sumner of New Order. This new version of the band also featured Angela Flowers aka Angela Cassidy (vocals, keyboards) and Jenny Ross (vocals, keyboards). This line-up completed a second tour of North America in 1985.
In 1986 the group again splintered, leaving husband-and-wife team Larry Cassidy and Jenny Ross to complete a fourth album, Love & Hate, finally released by Factory in 1988. Section 25 then fell silent for more than a decade, although their entire catalogue was reissued on CD on LTM as well as an archive DVD, So Far.
In 2001 the band regrouped and started composing new material. It was originally expected that this would form the basis for a new album but these plans were derailed by the death of Jenny Ross in 2004.
Now with Ian Butterworth (formerly of fellow Factory act Tunnelvison) on guitar and Roger Wikeley on bass and keyboards the band performed their first live show in nearly two decades at their hometown Poulton-Le-Fylde in May 2006 followed by dates in Blackpool, Paris, Brussels, Leicester, London and Athens.
A new studio album by the quartet, Part-Primitiv, was released by LTM in April 2007, together with Communicants, a DVD assembled from live performances in 2006.
Larry and Vin Cassidy also featured in the 2006 Factory documentary film Shadowplayers.
Interest in the band began to increase with the release of the new studio album Part-Primitiv in 2007. Their back catalogue has since risen in stature with much of it being featured in their live appearances. They played at Plan K in 2007 as part of the Factory Night (Once Again) event, being joined onstage by Peter Hook of New Order for a cover of Temptation. Further dates were announced in 2008 across 4 venues across Europe including Brussels - Peter Hook joined them on each date for several songs before retiring to the DJ booth for a couple of hours for the after-shows.
Roger Wikeley left Section 25 in 2008 and was replaced by Steve Stringer. With the new line-up Section 25 performed a set of dates in November 2008 in Paris, Brussels, Oss in the southern Netherlands and Krefeld in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany with former Joy Division and New Order bassist Peter Hook.
The band released a new album in 2009 called Nature + Degree.
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