Litmus stems from a concert given by the influential postmodern composer Philip Glass at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester, in 2001. In the audience for that event was Rob Adlard, a young musician with the city's Hallé Orchestra, now Litmus' first violinist and composer.

Rob realised that Glass' music, and that of various of his contemporaries from the minimalist and post-minimalist field, bore certain resemblances to Manchester bands of a completely different genre - to Joy Division, New Order and James. Where, for instance, Glass had pioneered a style of classical music involving a repetitious vortex of absorbing and resorbing rhythms; so Curtis, Hook, Morris and Albrecht had forged relentless, wild-eyed seizures of songs such as She's Lost Control. Taken with the idea, he set about composing classical interpretations of music by these and other bands from Manchester - some, like Happy Mondays, from the city's iconic Factory label. Others, like Doves, Oasis, The Smiths, The Stone Roses and Simply Red, were