28 December 2011
26 December 2011
Ladytron - Bonnaroo Festival, 2008
Format: MP3, 320 kbps CBR
Notes: Very good quality. I made the cover.
Track listing:
01. Black Cat
02. Runaway
03. High Rise
04. Ghosts
05. Seventeen
06. I'm Not Scared
07. True Mathematics
08. Season of Illusions
09. Soft Power
10. International Dateline
11. Burning Up
12. Destroy Everything You Touch
Download
23 December 2011
Ladytron - MTV Iggy, 2011
Format: MP4, 96 kbps (original stream)
Note: I extracted the audio stream from a video stream. Also I added tags with MP3Tag and I made the cover.
Track listing:
1. Interview
2. White Gold
3. Destroy Everything You Touch
Download
22 December 2011
DailyWhatNot interview (2011)
DailyWhatNot (DWN): How much Roxy Music means to you?
Daniel Hunt (DH): It's obviously a band we like, but the band name is more of a coincidence than anything else. But Brian Eno is obviously someone who we've been in contact with and that meant a lot to us. But if you listen to our music, I don't think you could hear a lot of Roxy Music in it.
DWN: What's the big difference on being 17 and 21? Is it really like your Seventeen song?
Helen Marnie (HM): I don't think there's much difference. 17 you're younger, 21 you're older.
DH: But there's a big difference between 21 and 36.
HM: Hahaha! I think you're still fun really on 21.
DH: It was just someone else's opinion, not ours.
DWN: You guys are Liverpudlians rite?
HM: The boys are.
DWN: So, Liverpool F.C. or Everton F.C.?
DH: Liverpool of course! If we supported Everton we wouldn't be here in Jakarta.
HM: I'm not from the Liverpool but I supported Liverpool as well over Everton.
DWN: Which new artist do you like now?
Reuben Wu (RW): I've been listening to Connan Mockasin. I'm not sure where he's from, but he's a singer/songwriter, sounds kinda like early Bowie stuff.
DH: I really like a band called Other Lives. Their record this year is been my favorite so far.
HM: I quite like the kind of fun aspect like Foster the People, like catchy fun stuff.
DH: For a big mainstream record that's really good.
DWN: Foster the Hipster!
Ladytron: Hahaha!
DH: Foster the Hipster, I like that, hahaha!
DWN: Do you guys care about Kate Middleton's pregnancy rumor that been going on for months?
DH: No.
HM: Care about what?
DH: Kate Middleton is apparently pregnant but we don't really care, hahaha!
HM: No, I don't care, hahaha! But I'm very happy for them.
DWN: Which of your song had the biggest impact for your music career?
DH: Destroy Everything You Touch is probably the biggest. In terms of all of the action we get when we play it anywhere in the world. It's the one that everybody knows.
HM: And people consider it to be our biggest hit.
RW: But there are a lot fan favorites though, like the first single Playgirl and He Took Her to a Movie was very important at the time.
DH: They got us attention.
HM: I think Playgirl and Seventeen are probably are the big ones majority people know and people always want to hear when we play at a concert.
DWN: Who do you really wanna see tonight at Djakarta Warehouse Project '11?
Ladytron: Jazzy Jeff.
DH: We met him at breakfast.
DWN: What or who influenced you in music?
DH: It's too many things, it's like now, it used to be an easy question to answer what music do you like maybe 20 years ago when you're in school or something, cause you normally like one thing, you like one band and you wanna have every record, but I couldn't describe what music I like and I haven't been able to for at least 10 years, it's impossible. Hmm, you can pick out a couple of bands you've like over the years or that they've been important to you but they don't themselves constitutes and influenced, so I don't know, it's really the hardest question, it's impossible.
DWN: You guys know Trent Reznor right?
HM: Yeah, we toured with Nine Inch Nails.
DWN: How is he like?
HM: He's a serious guy.
RW: He's loads of fun. He loves throwing jokes.
DWN: So he's serious or a joker?
RW: He's a serious joker.
HM: Hahaha!
RW: You should've seen his dressing room on the last tour.
Ladytron: Hahaha!
DH: He's a nice guy and he was helpful to us, but he's a serious guy.
HM: He knows what he wants and he knows how to get it. He was nice to us, so it's cool.
DWN: Is this your first time in Jakarta?
HM: It's my first time.
DH: And me too.
RW: I've been here before with Mira.
HM: I saw a monkey here!
DWN: Where?
HM: On the street.
DWN: With the doll mask?
HM: No.
RW: Do they make the masks themselves?
DWN: Hahaha! Come on!
RW: Monkey mask.
Ladytron: Hahaha!
15 December 2011
12 December 2011
11 December 2011
Ladytron - Selector Festival, 2011
Format: MP4, 640x480
Size: 148.5 MB
Source: audience recording
Content:
1. Runaway
2. Seventeen
3. White Elephant
4. Destroy Everything You Touch
Download
Altitude Blues (unofficial video)
"Altitude Blues" unofficial video based on Gravity the Seducer trailer by Neil Krug.
Soccer Gaming interview (2011)
The first SG Music interview of 2011 sees us catch up with FIFA 11 featured artists, Ladytron. Having been on the scene for over a decade, the 4 piece featuring members from Scotland and Liverpool have created quite a cult following amongst festival goers and are renouned for their live shows. Their track, Ace of Hz can be found on FIFA 11, and their music has also been featured on EA titles such as Need For Speed and The Sims along with the recent release for PS3, LittleBig Planet 2. I caught up with Reuben from the band to discuss football, music and performing!
Firstly, Ladytron could you explain a bit about your name and how you came together?
Ladytron was the name of a song on Roxy Music's first album. We formed in 1999 when I was back in Liverpool doing a masters degree in design, Danny was DJing at his own club night and Helen was doing a degree in music. We met Mira through a friend of ours while she was doing her PHD in genetics in Oxford.
Your music has a very strong electronic vibe, who would you class as your main musical influences?
Although we sound electronic, our influences are much wider-ranging than that, and it's impossible to list all of them, as the 4 of us like a lot of different music. With me, it's My Bloody Valentine, Brian Eno, Goblin, The Fall, Serge Gainsbourg, Curve, Wire, Broadcast, Stereolab as well as stuff like Aphex Twin, Pansonic, Nine Inch Nails, The Carpenters, Angelo Badalamenti and JS Bach which I have loved over the years.
Your are widely praised amongst music fans for opting for creativity ahead of conforming to the generic musical styles. Is this a conscious decision about the direction as a group or something that comes naturally?
When we are working on music or anything requiring creative thought, we automatically end up asking ourselves whether it's original and whether it's any good. I can't think of any time when we have decided to do something which was similar to anything in the mainstream media - I guess we are just not wired that way and many of the decisions are made solely by the band rather than a record label. In answer to your question, it's probably a combination of both. It also helps that there are 4 of us.
Ladytron are renouned for putting on top level live shows when they performing, and have developed something of a cult following. What are the best parts about performing live?
The best parts of live shows are seeing the crowd react to the songs we play them. We built up our live shows from scratch. When we first played live I'd say it was an attempt to replicate the early recorded material, whereas we're now at the stage where the quality of songwriting is matched by the ability to play them all out live. As electronic artists, it's very important that we keep it as live as possible and not resort to easy ways out, as it's just not fulfilling.
Having released your first international EP in 2000, how do you feel the music world has evolved and changed over the past decade, both positively and negatively?
Well, I can only comment on the music world that we are part of. I know that nowadays it's totally mainstream to feature synthesizers in music, whereas when we released our first records, only a very small handful of artists were using them as prominently as we were. Every interview we did asked us why we were using keyboards, compared to now when every band uses synthesizers but never get asked why! One aspect of modern music-listening which is both a curse and blessing to me is the internet allows anyone with a decent connection to listen to everyone else's music but at the same time it has nurtured short attention span and increasingly homogenised music.
Onto gaming, your tracks have been featured on games such as Need For Speed, The Sims 3 and of course FIFA 11. Do you feel these mediums are the best way to give mainstream audiences the opportunity to hear your music?
Definitely, we've always been quite an underground band so having our music included on these games is really refreshing. It's a whole new platform and adds a new dimension to music-listening. Our tracks as a soundtrack to a visual experiences work really well.
Do Ladytron game as a band at all, and if so, what are your favourite games to play, and ultimately, who is the best gamer?
Not really! I used to be an avid Super Nintendo player though. My favourite game was Legend of Zelda which I once completed in one day on one life after I pulled a sicky off school.
Music within video games is becoming a massive thing, with soundtracks being commonplace amongst many top level titles. Would you ever be interested in one day composing and developing an entire musical score for a video game?
Yes, we'd love to compose a whole score.
Regarding football, and with a band made up of people from both Liverpool and Scotland, do you follow any teams and are there any in group rivalries?
Not really. Danny's a big LFC follower but the rest of us aren't really huge fans. One thing's for sure. If there's a big LFC match on then we won't be in the rehearsing room.
Finally, there are very few groups that are mixed gender and manage to stay together for ten years. What are the best and worst parts about having both male and female elements to Ladytron?
It's all good. Seriously, I think this is one of the reasons why we are still together! Things are a bit more civilised when ladies are involved.
Source
Firstly, Ladytron could you explain a bit about your name and how you came together?Ladytron was the name of a song on Roxy Music's first album. We formed in 1999 when I was back in Liverpool doing a masters degree in design, Danny was DJing at his own club night and Helen was doing a degree in music. We met Mira through a friend of ours while she was doing her PHD in genetics in Oxford.
Your music has a very strong electronic vibe, who would you class as your main musical influences?
Although we sound electronic, our influences are much wider-ranging than that, and it's impossible to list all of them, as the 4 of us like a lot of different music. With me, it's My Bloody Valentine, Brian Eno, Goblin, The Fall, Serge Gainsbourg, Curve, Wire, Broadcast, Stereolab as well as stuff like Aphex Twin, Pansonic, Nine Inch Nails, The Carpenters, Angelo Badalamenti and JS Bach which I have loved over the years.
Your are widely praised amongst music fans for opting for creativity ahead of conforming to the generic musical styles. Is this a conscious decision about the direction as a group or something that comes naturally?
When we are working on music or anything requiring creative thought, we automatically end up asking ourselves whether it's original and whether it's any good. I can't think of any time when we have decided to do something which was similar to anything in the mainstream media - I guess we are just not wired that way and many of the decisions are made solely by the band rather than a record label. In answer to your question, it's probably a combination of both. It also helps that there are 4 of us.
Ladytron are renouned for putting on top level live shows when they performing, and have developed something of a cult following. What are the best parts about performing live?
The best parts of live shows are seeing the crowd react to the songs we play them. We built up our live shows from scratch. When we first played live I'd say it was an attempt to replicate the early recorded material, whereas we're now at the stage where the quality of songwriting is matched by the ability to play them all out live. As electronic artists, it's very important that we keep it as live as possible and not resort to easy ways out, as it's just not fulfilling.
Having released your first international EP in 2000, how do you feel the music world has evolved and changed over the past decade, both positively and negatively?
Well, I can only comment on the music world that we are part of. I know that nowadays it's totally mainstream to feature synthesizers in music, whereas when we released our first records, only a very small handful of artists were using them as prominently as we were. Every interview we did asked us why we were using keyboards, compared to now when every band uses synthesizers but never get asked why! One aspect of modern music-listening which is both a curse and blessing to me is the internet allows anyone with a decent connection to listen to everyone else's music but at the same time it has nurtured short attention span and increasingly homogenised music.
Onto gaming, your tracks have been featured on games such as Need For Speed, The Sims 3 and of course FIFA 11. Do you feel these mediums are the best way to give mainstream audiences the opportunity to hear your music?Definitely, we've always been quite an underground band so having our music included on these games is really refreshing. It's a whole new platform and adds a new dimension to music-listening. Our tracks as a soundtrack to a visual experiences work really well.
Do Ladytron game as a band at all, and if so, what are your favourite games to play, and ultimately, who is the best gamer?
Not really! I used to be an avid Super Nintendo player though. My favourite game was Legend of Zelda which I once completed in one day on one life after I pulled a sicky off school.
Music within video games is becoming a massive thing, with soundtracks being commonplace amongst many top level titles. Would you ever be interested in one day composing and developing an entire musical score for a video game?
Yes, we'd love to compose a whole score.
Regarding football, and with a band made up of people from both Liverpool and Scotland, do you follow any teams and are there any in group rivalries?
Not really. Danny's a big LFC follower but the rest of us aren't really huge fans. One thing's for sure. If there's a big LFC match on then we won't be in the rehearsing room.
Finally, there are very few groups that are mixed gender and manage to stay together for ten years. What are the best and worst parts about having both male and female elements to Ladytron?
It's all good. Seriously, I think this is one of the reasons why we are still together! Things are a bit more civilised when ladies are involved.
Source
25 November 2011
23 November 2011
20 November 2011
Ladytron - Barfly, London, 2003
Format: WMV, 320x240
Size: 144 MB
Source: internet stream by XFM
Content:
01. True Mathematics
02. Playgirl
03. Another Breakfast With You
04. Cracked LCD
05. Blue Jeans
06. He Took Her to a Movie
07. Evil
08. USA vs. White Noise
09. Seventeen
10. The Way That I Found You
11. Turn It On
12. Discotraxx
Download
The Digital Fix interview (2011)
For more than ten years now, Ladytron have been tantalising us with their ice cool electronica, breaking through at a time when some of today's Moog meddlers were still getting to grips with their Fisher Price DJ decks. With their new album Gravity the Seducer imminent, we caught up with the band's Helen Marnie to discuss their latest effort and how it feels to reach the milestone of a decade in the industry.
Hey Ladytron! Normally at this point we ask you to introduce yourself and tell us what the most exotic item within your current field of vision is.
I'm Helen from Ladytron! Within my current field of vision it would be a Chinese fighter pilot helmet I got when we were playing in China in 2005.
Because we have access to the internet, we know that Gravity the Seducer is your fifth studio album in ten years - which is a veritible flood by modern standards. When did thoughts turn towards writing a new album and is it easier or harder to come up with new material over time?
Yes, we've been lucky enough to sustain a music career since 1999, something I never thought would happen. As soon as we stopped touring Velocifero towards the end of 2009 our thoughts turned towards album number five. We always write when we have time off, never when on tour. The two just don't mix.
We are inspired by everything around us and events in our own lives so this is all poured into new material. There's always something there to write about.
Do you start with a plan as to how any new material is going to come together into an album, or do you just write and see what works?
We never really plan as such. We give ourselves a rough timeline and whatever material is ready by then goes into the pot and then we decide what we think is going to work best and what should be concentrated on. It's a pretty natural process. It's never contrived. We write about what we want and then pull it all together.
Does GTS have an overarching theme at all? A few tracks like 'White Elephant', 'Transparent Days', 'Mirage' suggest something about illusion maybe?
The album as a whole feels like it is thematically linked. The songs almost merge into one another at points. There are loose themes and imagery running throughout and re-occurring instrumentation. Themes range between life and death, optical illusions, and altitude, to name a few.
Ladytron, as a vehicle, has given you the opportunity to travel all over the world. What's the oddest thing you've ever seen on tour?
Yes, we've travelled to some amazing places and seen quite a few things. I think the most interesting place I've been is probably China. It's just so culturally different from the UK so is very unfamiliar to me. We first toured there in 2005. The streets of Shenzhen and Shanghai were lined with huge red posters on flagpoles with our faces on them. It looked almost military! We were the first western band to play there since Elton John I believe, so it was quite a big deal for us.
What kind of items do you take with you to remind you of home?
These days when I go on tour my most precious item is my laptop with Skype on it. It is a saviour. Means I can keep in touch with my husband and family and stay grounded when crazy stuff is going on on the tourbus.
I imagine Ladytron have some pretty hardcore Japanese fans. What kind of presents do they give you?
It's kind of weird but we have never actually played Japan as a band. Danny DJ-ed there years ago, and our EP Miss Black and Her Friends was released there by Bambini in 1999, however it's one place we've not been. We would love to go though!
What was it like putting together your 'best of'? When you sat down to compile the tracklisting, did it change the way you thought about your decade together?
It was quite a nostalgic process and it did make me realise we've gone through a lot together as a band, but also as friends. Sometimes it's easy to forget that we just started out making music and making fun for ourselves. Obviously today we have to be a more serious outfit, as Ladytron is what we do. But it was good to track through the years. Looking at the photo booklet really showed us as a bunch of kids. We look so baby faced.
Compiling the tracks was quite difficult because we all had ideas about what should and shouldn't be included. In the end we compiled a huge list and then narrowed it down by selection until we all agreed on the final cut. It did take quite some time though. The deluxe version is more rounded I think because it included some more obscure tracks, fan favourites, and tunes we thought should've had more exposure.
When you hit an anniversary like that, does it make you think about the future? Do you want Ladytron to be around for a long time or is it a case of one project at a time?
These days we don't really think too far ahead because who knows what the future holds? We do want longevity though. As long as we can keep producing music that we feel is worthy of release then we will continue to do so.
We always try and ask bands for some personal advice when we can - say there's this guy, maybe he writes for a music website and he's got a bit of a crush on the girl who works in the local musical instrument shop. He's going to go in and try out a synth in order to impress her - what should he play? A bit of Bach? Laura Brannigan? The hits of Meatloaf?
Hmmm. Classical is probably not the way to go. I say play some Carpenters, that's sure to win her over. If it doesn't maybe she's just not that cool.
Source
Hey Ladytron! Normally at this point we ask you to introduce yourself and tell us what the most exotic item within your current field of vision is.I'm Helen from Ladytron! Within my current field of vision it would be a Chinese fighter pilot helmet I got when we were playing in China in 2005.
Because we have access to the internet, we know that Gravity the Seducer is your fifth studio album in ten years - which is a veritible flood by modern standards. When did thoughts turn towards writing a new album and is it easier or harder to come up with new material over time?
Yes, we've been lucky enough to sustain a music career since 1999, something I never thought would happen. As soon as we stopped touring Velocifero towards the end of 2009 our thoughts turned towards album number five. We always write when we have time off, never when on tour. The two just don't mix.
We are inspired by everything around us and events in our own lives so this is all poured into new material. There's always something there to write about.
Do you start with a plan as to how any new material is going to come together into an album, or do you just write and see what works?
We never really plan as such. We give ourselves a rough timeline and whatever material is ready by then goes into the pot and then we decide what we think is going to work best and what should be concentrated on. It's a pretty natural process. It's never contrived. We write about what we want and then pull it all together.
Does GTS have an overarching theme at all? A few tracks like 'White Elephant', 'Transparent Days', 'Mirage' suggest something about illusion maybe?
The album as a whole feels like it is thematically linked. The songs almost merge into one another at points. There are loose themes and imagery running throughout and re-occurring instrumentation. Themes range between life and death, optical illusions, and altitude, to name a few.
Ladytron, as a vehicle, has given you the opportunity to travel all over the world. What's the oddest thing you've ever seen on tour?
Yes, we've travelled to some amazing places and seen quite a few things. I think the most interesting place I've been is probably China. It's just so culturally different from the UK so is very unfamiliar to me. We first toured there in 2005. The streets of Shenzhen and Shanghai were lined with huge red posters on flagpoles with our faces on them. It looked almost military! We were the first western band to play there since Elton John I believe, so it was quite a big deal for us. What kind of items do you take with you to remind you of home?
These days when I go on tour my most precious item is my laptop with Skype on it. It is a saviour. Means I can keep in touch with my husband and family and stay grounded when crazy stuff is going on on the tourbus.
I imagine Ladytron have some pretty hardcore Japanese fans. What kind of presents do they give you?
It's kind of weird but we have never actually played Japan as a band. Danny DJ-ed there years ago, and our EP Miss Black and Her Friends was released there by Bambini in 1999, however it's one place we've not been. We would love to go though!
What was it like putting together your 'best of'? When you sat down to compile the tracklisting, did it change the way you thought about your decade together?
It was quite a nostalgic process and it did make me realise we've gone through a lot together as a band, but also as friends. Sometimes it's easy to forget that we just started out making music and making fun for ourselves. Obviously today we have to be a more serious outfit, as Ladytron is what we do. But it was good to track through the years. Looking at the photo booklet really showed us as a bunch of kids. We look so baby faced.
Compiling the tracks was quite difficult because we all had ideas about what should and shouldn't be included. In the end we compiled a huge list and then narrowed it down by selection until we all agreed on the final cut. It did take quite some time though. The deluxe version is more rounded I think because it included some more obscure tracks, fan favourites, and tunes we thought should've had more exposure.
When you hit an anniversary like that, does it make you think about the future? Do you want Ladytron to be around for a long time or is it a case of one project at a time?These days we don't really think too far ahead because who knows what the future holds? We do want longevity though. As long as we can keep producing music that we feel is worthy of release then we will continue to do so.
We always try and ask bands for some personal advice when we can - say there's this guy, maybe he writes for a music website and he's got a bit of a crush on the girl who works in the local musical instrument shop. He's going to go in and try out a synth in order to impress her - what should he play? A bit of Bach? Laura Brannigan? The hits of Meatloaf?
Hmmm. Classical is probably not the way to go. I say play some Carpenters, that's sure to win her over. If it doesn't maybe she's just not that cool.
Source
19 November 2011
Ology interview (2011)
Your favorite band are probably still reading the instruction manual for their new Minimoog, but Liverpool quartet Ladytron have been releasing effortlessly hip, old school analogue synthesizer pop for more than a decade. Their new album Gravity the Seducer (out tomorrow) is maybe their biggest stylistic leap forward yet—a seamless song cycle of evocative synth textures, haunting pop melodies, and, as always, the chilly future-sex vocals of singers Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo.
I spoke with founding member Daniel Hunt last week about the band's new album, the upcoming "Mirage" music video, and the return of the album as an artistic statement.
Hi Daniel, this is Brett at Ology. How are you doing?
Hi, I'm good, thanks!
What've you been up to today?
I've just been chilling out. We've actually been up in Scotland shooting a video for "Mirage" all week, which was interesting.
Your North American tour kicks off in a few weeks. How much time do you typically spend rehearsing before a major tour?
It depends. We've been playing shows already this summer. We just had a break in August, so we'll have a little refresh before we go out.
There are a lot of really dense, complicated textures on several of the new songs. Has it been a challenge translating them into the live setting?
Not really. I mean, we cross that bridge when we get to it. The most important thing for us has always been to make the records sound right. When we reproduce that live, we approach it in turn, and we've done it differently from tour to tour. There's no set way of approaching it, really. Depends on the set-up.
I read that you recorded the new album in the countryside in Kent. Did the environment have a direct effect on the writing or recording process?
No, not really, because we write and record for obviously a long period before we approach studios. I would say perhaps the choice of recording location was influenced by the material, rather than vice versa.
You chose to work with producer Simon "Barny" Barnicott again on this record. What did he bring to the table this time around?
We've worked with him off and on since 2002. The first thing he did was a single mix for "Blue Jeans"-- he used to be Jim Abbiss' assistant and mix engineer. We did a couple of single mixes and Witching Hour with them, and now he works alone and has a set-up out there in Kent. So it made sense, really-- we really like his mixing. He has a great set of ears and some interesting tricks… quite convoluted analogue techniques to getting certain things. We try to remain outside the digital realm as much as we can, as much as is possible. He and Jim Abbiss are both really great for that.
When you hunker down to write a new album, will you typically come up with a set direction or sound you want to pursue, or does it all come organically out of the songwriting?
You end up with a batch of material that you're working on and sometimes the sound of tracks kind of attract each other, in a way. Tracks become closer together sonically as things develop. I think that's one of the strengths of this record—it sounds very coherent, that was a conscious move on our part… as conscious as these things can be, obviously. A record like this definitely couldn't be planned mathematically.
I really love the sounds on "White Gold". Do you remember which synthesizers or keyboards you used on it?
You might be talking about the Conn organ. That's probably the most characteristic sound on it. Or else, there's a sound that sounds like a plucked guitar, which is actually hollow plastic pipes that are pitched… It sounds a bit like a guitar, comes in after the first chorus. That might be what you're talking about.
I think that "90 Degrees" might be my new favorite Ladytron song of all time. How did that song come together?
I'm glad you said that, that song's quite dear to me. I actually originally wrote that in Portuguese for my fiancé, and then translated it to English. It's a couple years older than the others. To me, that's like the heart of the record. I think that track was the seed for what developed elsewhere on the record.
I really love the "Ace of Hz" and "White Elephant" videos. I'm wondering, are visuals something you're thinking about when you're writing and recording, or do they come much later in the process?
It comes later in the process because, to be honest, almost all videos are just the director's representation of the song. Unless you're hands-on making the video yourselves, they're not part of the canon, they are something added on. Sometimes they work in their own way, or they somehow transcend the track alone, or whatever, but rarely are they actually part of the album's visual identity. So they can be standalone, but now we're getting a little bit closer to the album. For example, Neil Krug has made some video material for the record and Helen and I put together the concept for the video for "Mirage", which we've just been shooting with director Michael Sherrington. The "Blue Jeans" video was completely our thing, and we've had input before, but this one might be the first time where we feel like the video and the song have genuine synergy. But it's not finished yet, so we'll see how it turns out.
Ladytron have been pigeonholed as being a lot of different things by the music press over the years. Now that synthesizers are becoming much more of a mainstay in rock and pop music, do you feel like there's less of a tendency to label electronic bands into the different categories than there was when you were first starting out?
Yeah, I think to be honest, we bore the brunt of it. The focus on genre and this need to classify everything was something that we found… I wouldn't say we found it annoying, but we found it bemusing. It's like, why do things need a genre? And at the same time, why invent a convoluted genre for something that doesn't really have one? Why not just let things exist on their own? Why not just let an artist exist without a generic tag at all? Then again, it's just part of the marketing, it's just how records are sold. So we obviously understand why those genres need to be there mechanically, but in terms of journalism or the appreciation of music, we didn't really understand why they had to be there. We were very reticent to be tagged, which is unavoidable, but we resisted it as much as we could. I guess we don't mind these kind of tags as long as we think they're fair or they're accurate.
Sometimes I find it surprising when you read about records and the way they're described is just completely wrong. It's almost like people are reading aggregated feeds of information about something without actually listening to it and appreciating it. For example, reposting a video on your social networks or whatever before you've gone beyond the first 10 seconds. I feel like this is part of how music is appreciated now, and what I find is, more and more of my friends are switching off that side of things and are listening to records for the duration and stepping away from the feeds and the aggregation and the genres and the boxes.
A lot of music has been single-based for so long. I'm wondering, do you think there's maybe a retaliatory move towards making real albums again?
I think so and I hope so! There seemed to be this kind of defeatist attitude maybe five years ago. It was like, "Oh, f--k this, we're not making albums anymore, f--k it, nobody listens to them anyway, no one buys them anyway." And I think it was maybe an older generation of artists who just felt like all that effort wasn't appreciated and that digital market people only buy the key songs. That doesn't and shouldn't affect your own creative endeavor. People always have their favorites. Ten years ago, the majority of people would get a CD and have the tracks that they listen to and ignore the rest. You have to give your audience the benefit of the doubt that they are going to appreciate all of the stuff you're going to do and not assume they only want the singles. If that was the case, I'd just give up, it'd be pointless.
I spoke with founding member Daniel Hunt last week about the band's new album, the upcoming "Mirage" music video, and the return of the album as an artistic statement.Hi Daniel, this is Brett at Ology. How are you doing?
Hi, I'm good, thanks!
What've you been up to today?
I've just been chilling out. We've actually been up in Scotland shooting a video for "Mirage" all week, which was interesting.
Your North American tour kicks off in a few weeks. How much time do you typically spend rehearsing before a major tour?
It depends. We've been playing shows already this summer. We just had a break in August, so we'll have a little refresh before we go out.
There are a lot of really dense, complicated textures on several of the new songs. Has it been a challenge translating them into the live setting?
Not really. I mean, we cross that bridge when we get to it. The most important thing for us has always been to make the records sound right. When we reproduce that live, we approach it in turn, and we've done it differently from tour to tour. There's no set way of approaching it, really. Depends on the set-up.I read that you recorded the new album in the countryside in Kent. Did the environment have a direct effect on the writing or recording process?
No, not really, because we write and record for obviously a long period before we approach studios. I would say perhaps the choice of recording location was influenced by the material, rather than vice versa.
You chose to work with producer Simon "Barny" Barnicott again on this record. What did he bring to the table this time around?
We've worked with him off and on since 2002. The first thing he did was a single mix for "Blue Jeans"-- he used to be Jim Abbiss' assistant and mix engineer. We did a couple of single mixes and Witching Hour with them, and now he works alone and has a set-up out there in Kent. So it made sense, really-- we really like his mixing. He has a great set of ears and some interesting tricks… quite convoluted analogue techniques to getting certain things. We try to remain outside the digital realm as much as we can, as much as is possible. He and Jim Abbiss are both really great for that.
When you hunker down to write a new album, will you typically come up with a set direction or sound you want to pursue, or does it all come organically out of the songwriting?You end up with a batch of material that you're working on and sometimes the sound of tracks kind of attract each other, in a way. Tracks become closer together sonically as things develop. I think that's one of the strengths of this record—it sounds very coherent, that was a conscious move on our part… as conscious as these things can be, obviously. A record like this definitely couldn't be planned mathematically.
I really love the sounds on "White Gold". Do you remember which synthesizers or keyboards you used on it?
You might be talking about the Conn organ. That's probably the most characteristic sound on it. Or else, there's a sound that sounds like a plucked guitar, which is actually hollow plastic pipes that are pitched… It sounds a bit like a guitar, comes in after the first chorus. That might be what you're talking about.
I think that "90 Degrees" might be my new favorite Ladytron song of all time. How did that song come together?
I'm glad you said that, that song's quite dear to me. I actually originally wrote that in Portuguese for my fiancé, and then translated it to English. It's a couple years older than the others. To me, that's like the heart of the record. I think that track was the seed for what developed elsewhere on the record.
I really love the "Ace of Hz" and "White Elephant" videos. I'm wondering, are visuals something you're thinking about when you're writing and recording, or do they come much later in the process?
It comes later in the process because, to be honest, almost all videos are just the director's representation of the song. Unless you're hands-on making the video yourselves, they're not part of the canon, they are something added on. Sometimes they work in their own way, or they somehow transcend the track alone, or whatever, but rarely are they actually part of the album's visual identity. So they can be standalone, but now we're getting a little bit closer to the album. For example, Neil Krug has made some video material for the record and Helen and I put together the concept for the video for "Mirage", which we've just been shooting with director Michael Sherrington. The "Blue Jeans" video was completely our thing, and we've had input before, but this one might be the first time where we feel like the video and the song have genuine synergy. But it's not finished yet, so we'll see how it turns out.
Ladytron have been pigeonholed as being a lot of different things by the music press over the years. Now that synthesizers are becoming much more of a mainstay in rock and pop music, do you feel like there's less of a tendency to label electronic bands into the different categories than there was when you were first starting out?
Yeah, I think to be honest, we bore the brunt of it. The focus on genre and this need to classify everything was something that we found… I wouldn't say we found it annoying, but we found it bemusing. It's like, why do things need a genre? And at the same time, why invent a convoluted genre for something that doesn't really have one? Why not just let things exist on their own? Why not just let an artist exist without a generic tag at all? Then again, it's just part of the marketing, it's just how records are sold. So we obviously understand why those genres need to be there mechanically, but in terms of journalism or the appreciation of music, we didn't really understand why they had to be there. We were very reticent to be tagged, which is unavoidable, but we resisted it as much as we could. I guess we don't mind these kind of tags as long as we think they're fair or they're accurate. Sometimes I find it surprising when you read about records and the way they're described is just completely wrong. It's almost like people are reading aggregated feeds of information about something without actually listening to it and appreciating it. For example, reposting a video on your social networks or whatever before you've gone beyond the first 10 seconds. I feel like this is part of how music is appreciated now, and what I find is, more and more of my friends are switching off that side of things and are listening to records for the duration and stepping away from the feeds and the aggregation and the genres and the boxes.
A lot of music has been single-based for so long. I'm wondering, do you think there's maybe a retaliatory move towards making real albums again?
I think so and I hope so! There seemed to be this kind of defeatist attitude maybe five years ago. It was like, "Oh, f--k this, we're not making albums anymore, f--k it, nobody listens to them anyway, no one buys them anyway." And I think it was maybe an older generation of artists who just felt like all that effort wasn't appreciated and that digital market people only buy the key songs. That doesn't and shouldn't affect your own creative endeavor. People always have their favorites. Ten years ago, the majority of people would get a CD and have the tracks that they listen to and ignore the rest. You have to give your audience the benefit of the doubt that they are going to appreciate all of the stuff you're going to do and not assume they only want the singles. If that was the case, I'd just give up, it'd be pointless.
13 November 2011
Ladytron - Selector Festival, 2011
Content: Runaway / Seventeen / White Elephant / Destroy Everything You Touch
MTV Hive interview (2011)
Ladytron has been making their particular brand of icy, New Wave-influenced electro-pop for a long time now. Following their Best Of 00-10 album, released earlier this year, the band's fifth album Gravity the Seducer is out today. While we've come to expect a certain gloom from the four-piece collective — serenely stoic goth-like hooks sung over sleek ambience or sparse electro-rock, for example — Gravity isn't so heavy. Instead their newest creation tones down the dark disco aesthetic for a brief foray into the light.
The lead singles are the clear successes of this endeavor: intro track "White Elephant" is built on a foundation of grandly swooping strings and lightly floating synths, "Ace of Hz" carries the strongest hook of the set and hauntingly broods in a style that's distinct to the group, but with a little less melodrama. Gravity, however, does work best as a whole. Where once we found ourselves playing a never-ending loop of "Destroy Everything You Touch," the recurring shimmer of chimes and warmly laid synth-beds of the band's newest creations are best understood when played as a set. Gravity the Seducer is more of a cinematic experience than anything they've done before.
Hive caught up with Ladytron's Reuben Wu a few days ago to talk about the release, the band's recording process, and what makes this album different from the rest.
You recently toured in support of your Best Of career retrospective. What was it like to be sitting on a new album while playing mostly your back catalog?
We played "White Elephants" and "Ace of Hz," so we were able to have a bit of fun and play at least two new songs while playing our old stuff. I mean, obviously, playing new music to an unsuspecting audience, it's not really great for us. Because, you know, a lot of people who go to gigs just want to hear music they recognize and they can sing to. I mean, the first time we ever played "Destroy Everything You Touch" was in '05 in China and when we played it there was absolutely no response. It was quite funny. So you say, "This is a new song," and you get a half-hearted reaction from the audience. It's actually quite nice to play hits and music that people know and love. It's nice now that the album has come out that now we can start playing the new stuff because that means there will be more recognition and audience participation, which is really what it's all about.
When you started recording Gravity the Seducer did you already know how you wanted it to be different from Velocifero? Or anything else you had previously done for that matter?
Well, we had some themes. We knew that we wanted a more kind of mid-tempo, a down-tempo, album. We wanted more of an atmospheric, surreal soundtrack vibe to it. We also knew it was going to be an album that people wouldn't necessarily expect us to produce. I think this sounds [like] what we wanted it to be but it morphed into something else. It did eventually become another kind of pop record in a way. It stands alone from the other albums that we've done but it's very, very, very much us. You can still hear our sounds in the music.
I know you wrote "Ace of Hz" a few years ago, around the time you were touring around your last studio album. Considering Gravity is so fluid in the way you mentioned earlier, did you have to consider that track in particular when recording the rest of the album? Did you have to mold anything around it?
That track is a little bit different from the rest of the album just because, yeah, it is one of the oldest tracks on that album. I think it still fits in to the story of the whole collection of songs. With every song, every song has it's own identity as one, yet it sticks together as an album perfectly for me. It works as an album better than any album that we've produced, I think. It's a very cohesive sounding album yet every song sounds different from each other.
This album also has an ethereal quality that makes it kind of cinematic. Are you guys interested in doing soundtrack work in the future?
We have quite a lot of our work used in movies, but they're songs. We've never actually written our own soundtrack and that's actually something we'd really like to do in the future.
If you were given the opportunity to choose a director or writer to work with, who would you pick?
For fun, I don't know, David Lynch? No, I can't say David Lynch. Everyone says David Lynch. I'm a massive massive Twin Peaks fan and a fan of Angelo Badalamenti's music so that would be cool. Werner Herzog. Alejandro Jodorowsky if he were to make another film. Anything really. If we were given the opportunity we would just make it our own and make it cool.
In past interviews Dan [Hunt] has avoided listing any influences or anything that could be genre-binding to the group, but there's definitely an impulsive desire to define your sound as '80s New Wave, electro-pop, or synth-pop. How do you maintain that ethos without becoming a slave to it?
It just comes from having a broad interest in music. A broad taste in music. That's the thing that Dan is probably thinking of, because we like so much music. It would be wrong to say that we liked this or that because, you know, it doesn't really give a true picture. It also helps that we are four people. It keeps us from doing the same thing. We kind of keep each other on our toes. It's a really good thing. Instead of just working alone, you have to be incredibly aware of everything. It's very difficult to keep yourself aware and take a step back from your work, you know? It helps when you have three other people listening to your stuff and always thinking, "Is this new?" Are we writing the same song again? Does this sound like someone else?" At times you have to create something that is original to us but interesting as well. That's why every album sounds new.
Do you ever listen to music while you're recording? Do you ever feel like you need to be keeping "in the loop"?
No, not really. Especially now when it's very difficult to be in the loop and also maintain this calm enthusiasm for music. Mainly because there's so much stuff out there. There's so much crap stuff as well. You have to listen to so much crap to get to the good. Whereas in the past you'd have people who would tell you for this band to look out for or you'd go to a record shop and you'd hear something someone was playing and then you would buy analog recording. You really had to listen to the music. Nowadays you have everything, like iTunes, out there telling you, "If you like this, you'll like this." And you have to kind of try it to actually know. It's quite frustrating, you know, taking suggestion from a computer. I'd much rather have real people giving me tips about what they're listening to.
That said, you're also releasing a new album into that market and your following is somewhat cult-like. They've been following you forever. How do you expect new people to be tipped to you?
The internet. [Laughs.] Yeah, their computer. I think the problem is that we live in this twenty-second attention span, where if you don't like it in twenty-seconds you move off from it. It's important to us that people look at the whole rounded idea of who we are and what we produced. That was one of the reasons we made the Best Of compilation, because we wanted to give this idea of who we were, not just the popular singles we produced. Also, I like to think that people learn about us through reading reviews and word of mouth more than anything else. Parties too – people playing our songs. That kind of thing. I think that's one of the reasons we have such a great following, because people think the music scene belongs to them and not to everyone.
I know that you and Dan met in the '90s while DJing. Are you still doing that?
Yeah, for sure. Whenever we get a gig we go out and play. We generally play high-energy music. Not really music like Ladytron but a party vibe and an electronic vibe. But yeah, that's a fun side project.
Have you been paying attention to any newer dance-outfits lately? There's a few that are pulling inspiration from '90s-era house music.
It seems like there are a lot of bands right now that are using keyboards. These cycles go in ten years or something like that. There's been a resurgence since about ten or twelve years ago. That might explain why a lot of bands are using keyboards and those sounds now. When we started off playing keyboards people would come to us like, "So, uh, why are you playing keyboards instead of guitars?" Now everyone's doing it again.
Source
The lead singles are the clear successes of this endeavor: intro track "White Elephant" is built on a foundation of grandly swooping strings and lightly floating synths, "Ace of Hz" carries the strongest hook of the set and hauntingly broods in a style that's distinct to the group, but with a little less melodrama. Gravity, however, does work best as a whole. Where once we found ourselves playing a never-ending loop of "Destroy Everything You Touch," the recurring shimmer of chimes and warmly laid synth-beds of the band's newest creations are best understood when played as a set. Gravity the Seducer is more of a cinematic experience than anything they've done before.Hive caught up with Ladytron's Reuben Wu a few days ago to talk about the release, the band's recording process, and what makes this album different from the rest.
You recently toured in support of your Best Of career retrospective. What was it like to be sitting on a new album while playing mostly your back catalog?
We played "White Elephants" and "Ace of Hz," so we were able to have a bit of fun and play at least two new songs while playing our old stuff. I mean, obviously, playing new music to an unsuspecting audience, it's not really great for us. Because, you know, a lot of people who go to gigs just want to hear music they recognize and they can sing to. I mean, the first time we ever played "Destroy Everything You Touch" was in '05 in China and when we played it there was absolutely no response. It was quite funny. So you say, "This is a new song," and you get a half-hearted reaction from the audience. It's actually quite nice to play hits and music that people know and love. It's nice now that the album has come out that now we can start playing the new stuff because that means there will be more recognition and audience participation, which is really what it's all about.
When you started recording Gravity the Seducer did you already know how you wanted it to be different from Velocifero? Or anything else you had previously done for that matter?
Well, we had some themes. We knew that we wanted a more kind of mid-tempo, a down-tempo, album. We wanted more of an atmospheric, surreal soundtrack vibe to it. We also knew it was going to be an album that people wouldn't necessarily expect us to produce. I think this sounds [like] what we wanted it to be but it morphed into something else. It did eventually become another kind of pop record in a way. It stands alone from the other albums that we've done but it's very, very, very much us. You can still hear our sounds in the music.
I know you wrote "Ace of Hz" a few years ago, around the time you were touring around your last studio album. Considering Gravity is so fluid in the way you mentioned earlier, did you have to consider that track in particular when recording the rest of the album? Did you have to mold anything around it?
That track is a little bit different from the rest of the album just because, yeah, it is one of the oldest tracks on that album. I think it still fits in to the story of the whole collection of songs. With every song, every song has it's own identity as one, yet it sticks together as an album perfectly for me. It works as an album better than any album that we've produced, I think. It's a very cohesive sounding album yet every song sounds different from each other.
This album also has an ethereal quality that makes it kind of cinematic. Are you guys interested in doing soundtrack work in the future?
We have quite a lot of our work used in movies, but they're songs. We've never actually written our own soundtrack and that's actually something we'd really like to do in the future.If you were given the opportunity to choose a director or writer to work with, who would you pick?
For fun, I don't know, David Lynch? No, I can't say David Lynch. Everyone says David Lynch. I'm a massive massive Twin Peaks fan and a fan of Angelo Badalamenti's music so that would be cool. Werner Herzog. Alejandro Jodorowsky if he were to make another film. Anything really. If we were given the opportunity we would just make it our own and make it cool.
In past interviews Dan [Hunt] has avoided listing any influences or anything that could be genre-binding to the group, but there's definitely an impulsive desire to define your sound as '80s New Wave, electro-pop, or synth-pop. How do you maintain that ethos without becoming a slave to it?
It just comes from having a broad interest in music. A broad taste in music. That's the thing that Dan is probably thinking of, because we like so much music. It would be wrong to say that we liked this or that because, you know, it doesn't really give a true picture. It also helps that we are four people. It keeps us from doing the same thing. We kind of keep each other on our toes. It's a really good thing. Instead of just working alone, you have to be incredibly aware of everything. It's very difficult to keep yourself aware and take a step back from your work, you know? It helps when you have three other people listening to your stuff and always thinking, "Is this new?" Are we writing the same song again? Does this sound like someone else?" At times you have to create something that is original to us but interesting as well. That's why every album sounds new.
Do you ever listen to music while you're recording? Do you ever feel like you need to be keeping "in the loop"?
No, not really. Especially now when it's very difficult to be in the loop and also maintain this calm enthusiasm for music. Mainly because there's so much stuff out there. There's so much crap stuff as well. You have to listen to so much crap to get to the good. Whereas in the past you'd have people who would tell you for this band to look out for or you'd go to a record shop and you'd hear something someone was playing and then you would buy analog recording. You really had to listen to the music. Nowadays you have everything, like iTunes, out there telling you, "If you like this, you'll like this." And you have to kind of try it to actually know. It's quite frustrating, you know, taking suggestion from a computer. I'd much rather have real people giving me tips about what they're listening to.
That said, you're also releasing a new album into that market and your following is somewhat cult-like. They've been following you forever. How do you expect new people to be tipped to you?
The internet. [Laughs.] Yeah, their computer. I think the problem is that we live in this twenty-second attention span, where if you don't like it in twenty-seconds you move off from it. It's important to us that people look at the whole rounded idea of who we are and what we produced. That was one of the reasons we made the Best Of compilation, because we wanted to give this idea of who we were, not just the popular singles we produced. Also, I like to think that people learn about us through reading reviews and word of mouth more than anything else. Parties too – people playing our songs. That kind of thing. I think that's one of the reasons we have such a great following, because people think the music scene belongs to them and not to everyone.
I know that you and Dan met in the '90s while DJing. Are you still doing that?Yeah, for sure. Whenever we get a gig we go out and play. We generally play high-energy music. Not really music like Ladytron but a party vibe and an electronic vibe. But yeah, that's a fun side project.
Have you been paying attention to any newer dance-outfits lately? There's a few that are pulling inspiration from '90s-era house music.
It seems like there are a lot of bands right now that are using keyboards. These cycles go in ten years or something like that. There's been a resurgence since about ten or twelve years ago. That might explain why a lot of bands are using keyboards and those sounds now. When we started off playing keyboards people would come to us like, "So, uh, why are you playing keyboards instead of guitars?" Now everyone's doing it again.
Source
31 October 2011
Ladytron - Montreal, 2011
Content: Soft Power / International Dateline / Mirage / Ghosts / High Rise / True Mathematics / White Gold / Runaway / Ace of Hz / Little Black Angel / Discotraxx / Fighting in Built Up Areas / Seventeen / White Elephant / Destroy Everything You Touch
29 October 2011
Ladytron - KEXP, 2011
Format: MP3, 320 kbps CBR
Note: I converted to MP3 320kbps CBR from WMA 128 kbps CBR stream. I added tags with MP3Tag and I made the cover.
Track listing:
1. Intro
2. White Elephant
3. Mirage
4. Interview
5. White Gold
6. Ace of Hz
Download
Interview Magazine interview (2011)
Ladytron the Seducer
It's easy to slip into a trance while playing UK-based electro outfit Ladytron on full blast. Ethereal, ice-cold melodies float over a sleek, metallic bass line, with vocalist Mira Aroyo sprinkling in her native Bulgarian just to keep it interesting. Ladytron's fifth studio album, Gravity the Seducer [Nettwerk], which the band is currently on tour promoting in North America, shows the band at their most laid-back, while still adding new brushstrokes to the Ladytron sonic palette.
Over the past ten years, Ladytron (Helen Marnie, lead vocals and synthesizers; Mira Aroyo, vocals and synthesizers; Daniel Hunt, synthesizers, electric guitar, vocals; and Reuben Wu, synthesizers) has been busy: touring, writing songs for Christina Aguilera, DJing, remixing, and producing music for video game and film soundtracks. And it's no wonder these indie darlings are in such high demand: Ladytron pushes sonic boundaries and is known for a largely unclassifiable sound that has been called everything from New Wave to electro-dance-pop.
Already halfway through their North American tour, Ladytron plays Terminal 5 in New York this Saturday, October 8th, followed by an after-hours DJ set at YOTEL. We caught Ladytron synth czar Daniel Hunt while the band was in the middle of a two-day drive from Montana. We touched on roller coasters, whether being in a band for 10 years gets old, and why truck stops are so scary.
You recently played a concert at Six Flags in Mexico. How was that?
It was definitely not fun. There was a tropical rainstorm. It should have been fun. 6,000 people showed up to see us and they were all standing in the rain.
Do you even like roller coasters?
No, I don't really like roller coasters, either. [laughs] I mean, we liked the idea of playing at Six Flags, but nobody told us it was going to rain.
You're on tour promoting the new record, Gravity the Seducer. It sounds a lot different from the last album, Velocifero. Is the band moving in a new musical direction?
We've had people say it's completely different, and we've had people say, "Oh, you know, it's a twist on what they've done in the past or a refinement of that." I wouldn't say it's a new direction. I'd say it was an album that expands on a thread that's run through our records. We think there's enough dance music in the world and we don't really think we need to be making it. We can always get remixes done whenever we want. I just think in terms of what we've got up our sleeves, this kind of record is far more rough than anything else. There's definitely a bit of a jump between the last record and this, but if you look over all the albums and shuffle a little bit, you'll see there's a thread leading through.
Speaking of all the other albums, Ladytron recently released an album of greatest hits, Best of 00-10. What was the experience of summarizing 10 years of Ladytron into a couple discs?
It was a little bit eerie. I mean it was fun, but it was like, how long have we been going? We also had to compile a photo book, and when we started, we just looked like children. It was a good experience, and it was also interesting to put tracks together in a new way—especially considering a lot of our audience have only been aware of us for a few years. It gives us a chance to say, okay, this is what we've been doing for the last 10 years.
One interesting thing about Ladytron is the almost orchestral use of layering.
Yeah, that's important to us. One thing that we're conscious of is that a lot of music now is created and mixed for laptop speakers. And that's fine, but after a while your ears don't lie to you, and some records only have a shelf life of a few weeks. Sounding good on laptop speakers is fine, but we're very old-school in that regard, very traditional. We like albums, we like records that are mixed to last forever. Gravity the Seducer, more than any of the records we've done before, is one for headphones.
That old-school vibe really comes through, even with the analog instruments you use on stage.
Well, that's from when we started. That was the gear we had, and that's what we made the band out of. When we first came out, nobody was using instruments like that, so it gave us a little bit of an advantage by having a limited sonic palette. By having more limited tools, you often end up developing better ideas because when you're flooded with the tools, the ideas get swamped. It was a bit of a novelty, a gimmick-not an intentional gimmick, but it worked as one.
You guys have been together for a while. Does it ever get old?
[laughs] I don't know. We felt burned out after the last tour finished, because we were more or less on the road constantly for four years. We put an album out, toured for two years, put another album out, toured for two more years. We didn't have a lot of time off at all. We can't tour and we don't want to tour as much as people might want us to, for our own sanity, for our own happiness. So we're being more considered this time. Like for example, this U.S. tour we're only doing three and a half weeks. For the band to continue, it's better that you play less and don't burn yourselves out, because we've put a hell of a lot in this. From 2005 to 2009, it was incessant.
What were you doing before Ladytron?
We were all doing bits and pieces. The girls were still in school—Mira was doing a Ph.D. in genetics, Reuben was working in industrial design, Helen had just come out of university, I was organizing a lot of parties and stuff. I had my own studio before I came to the band, so I came to this as a producer and I've done bits and pieces with other bands before.
All right, tell us something about Montana. You're driving through there now, right? What are you seeing?
Well the drive here is amazing, especially driving through Washington state. The scenery is incredible. But we go from the sublime to this horrible cluster of hotels and gas stations.
Do you have any horror stories?
We've had horror stories before from truck stops and whatever.
Truck stops are hilarious.
Well, this is the second time we've stopped in Montana. We've only stopped here once before, and boy, did it scare us. We had a scary time in St. Regis, Montana once where I was more or less confident that we were going to be killed. It was a little bit like Race with the Devil [1975]. I expected to wake up in the morning and see a ring of fire around the bus. We haven't been back since.
Source
It's easy to slip into a trance while playing UK-based electro outfit Ladytron on full blast. Ethereal, ice-cold melodies float over a sleek, metallic bass line, with vocalist Mira Aroyo sprinkling in her native Bulgarian just to keep it interesting. Ladytron's fifth studio album, Gravity the Seducer [Nettwerk], which the band is currently on tour promoting in North America, shows the band at their most laid-back, while still adding new brushstrokes to the Ladytron sonic palette.
Over the past ten years, Ladytron (Helen Marnie, lead vocals and synthesizers; Mira Aroyo, vocals and synthesizers; Daniel Hunt, synthesizers, electric guitar, vocals; and Reuben Wu, synthesizers) has been busy: touring, writing songs for Christina Aguilera, DJing, remixing, and producing music for video game and film soundtracks. And it's no wonder these indie darlings are in such high demand: Ladytron pushes sonic boundaries and is known for a largely unclassifiable sound that has been called everything from New Wave to electro-dance-pop.Already halfway through their North American tour, Ladytron plays Terminal 5 in New York this Saturday, October 8th, followed by an after-hours DJ set at YOTEL. We caught Ladytron synth czar Daniel Hunt while the band was in the middle of a two-day drive from Montana. We touched on roller coasters, whether being in a band for 10 years gets old, and why truck stops are so scary.
You recently played a concert at Six Flags in Mexico. How was that?
It was definitely not fun. There was a tropical rainstorm. It should have been fun. 6,000 people showed up to see us and they were all standing in the rain.
Do you even like roller coasters?
No, I don't really like roller coasters, either. [laughs] I mean, we liked the idea of playing at Six Flags, but nobody told us it was going to rain.
You're on tour promoting the new record, Gravity the Seducer. It sounds a lot different from the last album, Velocifero. Is the band moving in a new musical direction?
We've had people say it's completely different, and we've had people say, "Oh, you know, it's a twist on what they've done in the past or a refinement of that." I wouldn't say it's a new direction. I'd say it was an album that expands on a thread that's run through our records. We think there's enough dance music in the world and we don't really think we need to be making it. We can always get remixes done whenever we want. I just think in terms of what we've got up our sleeves, this kind of record is far more rough than anything else. There's definitely a bit of a jump between the last record and this, but if you look over all the albums and shuffle a little bit, you'll see there's a thread leading through.
Speaking of all the other albums, Ladytron recently released an album of greatest hits, Best of 00-10. What was the experience of summarizing 10 years of Ladytron into a couple discs?
It was a little bit eerie. I mean it was fun, but it was like, how long have we been going? We also had to compile a photo book, and when we started, we just looked like children. It was a good experience, and it was also interesting to put tracks together in a new way—especially considering a lot of our audience have only been aware of us for a few years. It gives us a chance to say, okay, this is what we've been doing for the last 10 years.
One interesting thing about Ladytron is the almost orchestral use of layering.Yeah, that's important to us. One thing that we're conscious of is that a lot of music now is created and mixed for laptop speakers. And that's fine, but after a while your ears don't lie to you, and some records only have a shelf life of a few weeks. Sounding good on laptop speakers is fine, but we're very old-school in that regard, very traditional. We like albums, we like records that are mixed to last forever. Gravity the Seducer, more than any of the records we've done before, is one for headphones.
That old-school vibe really comes through, even with the analog instruments you use on stage.
Well, that's from when we started. That was the gear we had, and that's what we made the band out of. When we first came out, nobody was using instruments like that, so it gave us a little bit of an advantage by having a limited sonic palette. By having more limited tools, you often end up developing better ideas because when you're flooded with the tools, the ideas get swamped. It was a bit of a novelty, a gimmick-not an intentional gimmick, but it worked as one.
You guys have been together for a while. Does it ever get old?
[laughs] I don't know. We felt burned out after the last tour finished, because we were more or less on the road constantly for four years. We put an album out, toured for two years, put another album out, toured for two more years. We didn't have a lot of time off at all. We can't tour and we don't want to tour as much as people might want us to, for our own sanity, for our own happiness. So we're being more considered this time. Like for example, this U.S. tour we're only doing three and a half weeks. For the band to continue, it's better that you play less and don't burn yourselves out, because we've put a hell of a lot in this. From 2005 to 2009, it was incessant.
What were you doing before Ladytron?
We were all doing bits and pieces. The girls were still in school—Mira was doing a Ph.D. in genetics, Reuben was working in industrial design, Helen had just come out of university, I was organizing a lot of parties and stuff. I had my own studio before I came to the band, so I came to this as a producer and I've done bits and pieces with other bands before.
All right, tell us something about Montana. You're driving through there now, right? What are you seeing?Well the drive here is amazing, especially driving through Washington state. The scenery is incredible. But we go from the sublime to this horrible cluster of hotels and gas stations.
Do you have any horror stories?
We've had horror stories before from truck stops and whatever.
Truck stops are hilarious.
Well, this is the second time we've stopped in Montana. We've only stopped here once before, and boy, did it scare us. We had a scary time in St. Regis, Montana once where I was more or less confident that we were going to be killed. It was a little bit like Race with the Devil [1975]. I expected to wake up in the morning and see a ring of fire around the bus. We haven't been back since.
Source
Electronic Musician interview (2011)
Infusing Cold Synths With Guitar Fire
It makes absolute sense that Daniel Hunt's "favorite record ever" is My Bloody Valentine's 1991 album Loveless. Aside from the obvious fact that Hunt's band is also a quartet comprised of two men and two women, Ladytron is like MBV for the electronic set: dense layers of synths rather than a shoegaze-y wall of guitars.
"I grew up listening to music that I could not fully understand", Hunt says. "I like this kind of swell where you hear certain things and you're not sure what they are, and you're not sure what is connected to what".
That isn't to say that Ladytron is creating an amorphous sonic mess in the studio. Ten years after releasing their debut album, 604, Ladytron has learned a thing or two about maximizing space in the mix. With the band's fifth full-length record, Gravity the Seducer, Hunt says they're more cognizant of when to say when.
"I think we're instinctively preempting those problems in the mix by not throwing too many bass-y mono synths and layers down there", he says. "We're just a bit more aware of what's required than we used to be. With the first and second records, the mix engineer would be like, 'You know, you put seven basses on here.' And we'd go, 'Okay, well it's your job. You just make it work!' We're a bit more considerate now".
While Ladytron dove into recording their previous two albums immediately after months on the road—thus creating an album that would easily translate to the stage—the band took a different approach to Gravity the Seducer. "We probably had about a year off from the road in which to write and prepare and had a clearer idea of what we wanted", Hunt says. "It was refreshing to make a record without thinking about the accompanying tour. We didn't care about it, so I think the record sounds freer and more coherent as a result".
One of the group's sonic schemes was to create a cinematic feel by using signature sounds throughout the album, including Sequential Circuits Pro-One, Buchla, Mellotron/Chamberlin, Conn, and Crumar Stratus keyboards. "We consciously tried to restrict ourselves to a sonic palette for the record", Hunt says. "We got to a point with every track and then went, 'What's this missing? Okay, we haven't put the Conn organ on it yet.' That organ had this really beautiful harmonic setting on it. Once we started using that—I think we used it on 'White Elephant' initially—it ended up on almost every song, if not every song. But unfortunately, we couldn't take it away with us. It's still stuck there in the countryside".
Although Ladytron's synth palette was limited, there was still no shortage of layers. Fortunately, it wasn't too much for co-producer Barny Barnicott to handle. He carved out space and attended to detail without overdosing on EQ, all the while making the album sound great on hi-fi systems and crappy laptop speakers.
"I tend to balance very quietly on medium speakers and then switch to a small portable radio for finishing off [the mix]", Barnicott says. "If you get the balance right like that without reaching for your EQ too much, a mix tends to work well across all platforms".
While Barnicott's methods are sophisticated, Hunt suspects that other producers sometimes resort to gimmicks to get a mix to sound right through lo-fi sound systems. "I have a theory that the prevalence of square waves and Auto-Tune in pop music these days is because people are listening to their music through their laptop speakers", Hunt says. "I've got no scientific evidence to back this up, but that's my instinct".
Meanwhile, Ladytron avoids using über-artificial plug-in processing on vocals and synths. Hunt (like his favorite band, MBV) is a fan of using lots of guitar pedals. In fact, he used to play mostly guitar at gigs, but more recently has played and recorded synths—which range on the album from deep, round bass to high, plinking bells—through his guitar pedalboard. "On the records, it made sense for me to play guitar for a while, and where certain songs didn't have guitar before, I actually added it live, and it enhanced what we'd done on the record", he says.
"But this time, we actually went back and added this old Italian polysynth, a Crumar Stratus, which has quite a nice Farisa-y organ sound on it. So I was playing my guitar parts on the keyboard and putting it through my pedalboard, and it sounded surprisingly good. It's going through an overdrive, delay, tremolo, and also an Electro-Harmonix POG Polyphonic Octave Generator. We also used a lot of this Empress Superdelay, which is like an octave delay, and it has some really beautiful effects that I haven't been able to recreate with anything else. It's just instant magic".
One particularly catchy riff that begins midway through "White Gold" sounds like palm-muted guitar but was actually created with a set of chromatic plastic tubes called Boomwhackers. "I saw them being used at my daughter's nursery", Barnicott says. "I think Reuben [Wu] and I had a couple of them, each in the right key, and came up with a rhythm that worked with the tune. Then the engineer, Alex [Miller], processed it quite heavily through the desk".
"It kind of reminds me of Miami Vice or something", Hunt adds with a laugh. "We physically constructed a riff by arranging those tubes and hitting them with beaters. I don't even think we had a complete scale to work with. But we didn't have to do that much editing. We just had to make sure it was timed enough, and perhaps we might have had to pitch-shift one note in [Celemony] Melodyne to make it work properly".
For an album with no guitars, the members of Ladytron certainly have a lot of guitar-related tricks up their sleeves. To add depth to synths and vocals, the band also processed parts through a Holy Grail reverb pedal, into a guitar amp, and then miked up the room about 10 feet away from the amp. "We ended up taking existing parts, reprocessing them quite a few times, and then bringing them in and out of the mix, so the tunes have movement to them while still having a simple arrangement", Barnicott says. "So we put a lot of the synths and vocals through reverbs and amps and recorded the room to give everything more of a 3-D sound and some natural distortion and grit".
The Holy Grail/amp combo is one of Hunt's favorites. "It's a really kind of glacial reverb", Hunt says. "I'm a really big fan of [legendary British producer] Joe Meek, so often when I'm working on something, it's like, 'What would Joe Meek do?' I draw the line at shooting my landlady, though".
Source
It makes absolute sense that Daniel Hunt's "favorite record ever" is My Bloody Valentine's 1991 album Loveless. Aside from the obvious fact that Hunt's band is also a quartet comprised of two men and two women, Ladytron is like MBV for the electronic set: dense layers of synths rather than a shoegaze-y wall of guitars.
"I grew up listening to music that I could not fully understand", Hunt says. "I like this kind of swell where you hear certain things and you're not sure what they are, and you're not sure what is connected to what". That isn't to say that Ladytron is creating an amorphous sonic mess in the studio. Ten years after releasing their debut album, 604, Ladytron has learned a thing or two about maximizing space in the mix. With the band's fifth full-length record, Gravity the Seducer, Hunt says they're more cognizant of when to say when.
"I think we're instinctively preempting those problems in the mix by not throwing too many bass-y mono synths and layers down there", he says. "We're just a bit more aware of what's required than we used to be. With the first and second records, the mix engineer would be like, 'You know, you put seven basses on here.' And we'd go, 'Okay, well it's your job. You just make it work!' We're a bit more considerate now".
While Ladytron dove into recording their previous two albums immediately after months on the road—thus creating an album that would easily translate to the stage—the band took a different approach to Gravity the Seducer. "We probably had about a year off from the road in which to write and prepare and had a clearer idea of what we wanted", Hunt says. "It was refreshing to make a record without thinking about the accompanying tour. We didn't care about it, so I think the record sounds freer and more coherent as a result".
One of the group's sonic schemes was to create a cinematic feel by using signature sounds throughout the album, including Sequential Circuits Pro-One, Buchla, Mellotron/Chamberlin, Conn, and Crumar Stratus keyboards. "We consciously tried to restrict ourselves to a sonic palette for the record", Hunt says. "We got to a point with every track and then went, 'What's this missing? Okay, we haven't put the Conn organ on it yet.' That organ had this really beautiful harmonic setting on it. Once we started using that—I think we used it on 'White Elephant' initially—it ended up on almost every song, if not every song. But unfortunately, we couldn't take it away with us. It's still stuck there in the countryside".
Although Ladytron's synth palette was limited, there was still no shortage of layers. Fortunately, it wasn't too much for co-producer Barny Barnicott to handle. He carved out space and attended to detail without overdosing on EQ, all the while making the album sound great on hi-fi systems and crappy laptop speakers.
"I tend to balance very quietly on medium speakers and then switch to a small portable radio for finishing off [the mix]", Barnicott says. "If you get the balance right like that without reaching for your EQ too much, a mix tends to work well across all platforms".While Barnicott's methods are sophisticated, Hunt suspects that other producers sometimes resort to gimmicks to get a mix to sound right through lo-fi sound systems. "I have a theory that the prevalence of square waves and Auto-Tune in pop music these days is because people are listening to their music through their laptop speakers", Hunt says. "I've got no scientific evidence to back this up, but that's my instinct".
Meanwhile, Ladytron avoids using über-artificial plug-in processing on vocals and synths. Hunt (like his favorite band, MBV) is a fan of using lots of guitar pedals. In fact, he used to play mostly guitar at gigs, but more recently has played and recorded synths—which range on the album from deep, round bass to high, plinking bells—through his guitar pedalboard. "On the records, it made sense for me to play guitar for a while, and where certain songs didn't have guitar before, I actually added it live, and it enhanced what we'd done on the record", he says.
"But this time, we actually went back and added this old Italian polysynth, a Crumar Stratus, which has quite a nice Farisa-y organ sound on it. So I was playing my guitar parts on the keyboard and putting it through my pedalboard, and it sounded surprisingly good. It's going through an overdrive, delay, tremolo, and also an Electro-Harmonix POG Polyphonic Octave Generator. We also used a lot of this Empress Superdelay, which is like an octave delay, and it has some really beautiful effects that I haven't been able to recreate with anything else. It's just instant magic".
One particularly catchy riff that begins midway through "White Gold" sounds like palm-muted guitar but was actually created with a set of chromatic plastic tubes called Boomwhackers. "I saw them being used at my daughter's nursery", Barnicott says. "I think Reuben [Wu] and I had a couple of them, each in the right key, and came up with a rhythm that worked with the tune. Then the engineer, Alex [Miller], processed it quite heavily through the desk".
"It kind of reminds me of Miami Vice or something", Hunt adds with a laugh. "We physically constructed a riff by arranging those tubes and hitting them with beaters. I don't even think we had a complete scale to work with. But we didn't have to do that much editing. We just had to make sure it was timed enough, and perhaps we might have had to pitch-shift one note in [Celemony] Melodyne to make it work properly". For an album with no guitars, the members of Ladytron certainly have a lot of guitar-related tricks up their sleeves. To add depth to synths and vocals, the band also processed parts through a Holy Grail reverb pedal, into a guitar amp, and then miked up the room about 10 feet away from the amp. "We ended up taking existing parts, reprocessing them quite a few times, and then bringing them in and out of the mix, so the tunes have movement to them while still having a simple arrangement", Barnicott says. "So we put a lot of the synths and vocals through reverbs and amps and recorded the room to give everything more of a 3-D sound and some natural distortion and grit".
The Holy Grail/amp combo is one of Hunt's favorites. "It's a really kind of glacial reverb", Hunt says. "I'm a really big fan of [legendary British producer] Joe Meek, so often when I'm working on something, it's like, 'What would Joe Meek do?' I draw the line at shooting my landlady, though".
Source
10 October 2011
24 August 2011
Stereogum interview (2011)
Name: Ladytron.
Progress Report: Ladytron's Daniel Hunt discusses the group's fantastic new album Gravity the Seducer and examines the relative joys and pains of making music with the same band for well over a decade.
Since releasing their first EP in 1999, Ladytron have consistently conjured up seamlessly beautiful electro-pop equally suitable for dance floors and séances. Earlier this year the band released Best of 00-10 — a sprawling 33 track deluxe treatment documenting the band's excellent first decade. This October they will release their fifth studio album, Gravity the Seducer — a moody, sensual, cool-as-ice collection of songs that should further cement their position of contemporary music's finest purveyors of erudite pop music. We called up founding member Daniel Hunt to discuss.
Hey Daniel! What part of the world are you in right now?
I'm in Liverpool. It's good to be back home for a while.
I'm in NY right now, where the temperature is approximately 1000 degrees today.
Oh I wish! We've had our four days of summer here. This is my first British summer here for years, so I'm making the most of it.
What can you say about the making of this album? Was it a vastly different experience from previous albums?
It felt a little bit easier because the three previous albums, the previous one in particular, we ended up touring for a long time. We toured Witching Hour for way longer than we were expecting to and we were literally off the road for about a week before we were already in the studio. Obviously we already had material written prior to that so it wasn't like we were working for scratch. But it also wasn't like there was a lot of time to go and live normally and recharge and whatever. This one we actually finished a year ago and it was mixed and mastered in October. The delay here is really just an issue of scheduling. We had a "best of" compilation out at the time, so it didn't make sense to release this new record so soon. We have been sitting on it for a while, I'm just glad people are able to hear some of it already because we were dying to get it out there.
That must feel strange. There is always that weird limbo period between when something is finished and the time it actually gets released.
Yeah, it was probably more acute this time because I had just came away with such a good feeling about the record and I was desperate to hear it. It has been quite frustrating to us. But we came away with a really good feeling about it, I think looking at it a year later and as objectively as I can, it is definitely our most coherent piece of work. It's definitely the least, I don't know how to say this without misleading, but you know previously we may have had one eye on making sure some kind of commercial "boxes" we needed to check. Even if it wasn't overt, we would still have some sort of eye on thinking about what might happen with certain tracks commercially or whatever. I think that's as much as my band would admit to. I think that this time we didn't do it at all to be honest and the end result was something that we all were happier with … so it will be interesting to see how it is received. I just feel that as soon as you step away from those kinds of constraints things get so much better … but obviously with the way things are these days, I don't quite blame people for kind of playing it safe in that respect. Once you step away from that, I don't know, the quality of work increases and you got to give the audience the benefit of the doubt that they will appreciate that and that they will appreciate the development and appreciate the extra levels of work. The best thing I can do to gauge this is to play it to my friends and the response so far has been really positive … so I'm happy.
Well the record has a very seamless quality to it. I mean it seems very much of a piece.
That was what we wanted. That is the kind of record we wanted to make. There's still a lot of variation in it though. Our albums in the past have been quite intentionally disjointed and they worked to a point in that way, but this one is way more coherent. There are still quite the extremes, you know. For example "90 Degrees" and "Melting Ice" appear very close together on the record, but they basically represent the two extremes in terms of styles on the record. When it comes to the structure of it — the sequence and everything — we are old fashioned, we are traditionalists, we like the idea of people sitting and listening to records all the way through which is not a particularly fashionable viewpoint these days but we don't know how else to do it.
How was the record recorded? Do you guys have your own studio now?
Yeah. We've always had our own studio, but when we think things are about 60-70% finished, we take it somewhere else to complete the recording. We did the first album in Wales, the second one we did in L.A, for the third one we remained in Liverpool, the fourth one we did in Paris and this one we did in Kent with Barny Barnicott. He now has his own house in the countryside where he moved a studio from London that was closing down — he basically got all the gear from there and transplanted it in the middle of the country. When we made it we all lived in different places: three members of the band were living in London, while I was living in Italy until two months ago. So, the idea of us having a studio as a home base wasn't really applicable.
That does change things. When everyone lives in different cities you really have to plan. It's not like you just turn up in the afternoons and jam and see what happens.
Exactly, but we have never really done that to be honest. We have always lived all over. Now there's three of us in London. At the very beginning there was three in Liverpool, and I think that was the closest we have all ever lived within proximity including the house in Italy for almost five years. The last two records were made while I was up there.
Has your process as a band changed radically over the years? How do you guys tend to write music? Do you all write together? Does everyone bring their own bits and you sort of play around with them?
Yeah, everyone brings their own bits in — either complete tracks, or it's like 'I brought a song in and it needs working up and producing' or 'here is an instrumental that doesn't have a vocal.' You know, here's part of something that needs something else. It's different every time. I think that what has developed over time is that everyone is a lot more confident with putting in all these completed demos to work from. At the very beginning it was more my responsibility to tie everything together. It still kind of was with this record, in terms of bringing the threads together. But everyone is a lot more confident in the studio now, so I guess that's just development naturally over time. It's not really any conscious change in process, just getting better at it and not wasting time on the things that don't really make a difference — like concentrating on the actual sounds rather then this musical alchemy.
Its interesting thinking back to when I first saw you guys play in New York which was in the early-2000's I guess and when the Best Of compilation came out it really made me think about how long you've been doing this. I bought 604 right after I moved to NYC. I was a baby!
That's why we released the compilation: to make everyone feel old.
Is it hard to believe that you guys have been making music together for well over a decade now?
Well, yes. I kind of resent "best of" compilations in general. I was thinking back and there have been some compilations that felt important in a band's back catalogue when it didn't just seem like repackaging old songs for commercial purposes but it actually felt important. For example, Songs To Learn And Sing for Echo and the Bunnymen. It was kind of like ushering in the second wave of their audience. The Smiths compilations, for example. I guess I'm thinking of mostly bands from the '80s. Anyhow, we thought, well there is a positive way of doing this and since we've been together so long, there was probably a lot of our audience who wasn't even aware of the majority of our material. So we made a choice of putting together a compilation that we felt was immediate and wasn't just a selection of singles. We put the tracks that we thought should have been singles even if they weren't and often they correlated with the tracks that were well liked amongst our audience, so that made sense. And also it was a chance to draw a line in the sand, really. I mean this new record is different. It still sounds like us but it is different. You know the last thing we want to do is to be making the same record. It was nice to be able to put what we've done in a new context — over ten years of work — that had some benefit beyond trying to just sell some records.
I think its cool that as a band you have a really great trajectory in terms of building on the strength of each successive album. It seems like you have developed a really devoted fan base that has grown very organically, which is not easy to do now. I feel like it's harder and harder for bands to do that now, not only because we're even more obsessed with only what is "new" now more than ever, but also because there are just so many bands … and thanks to the internet, we are inundated with hearing about all of them all the time.
Yeah, that is certainly part of it. I like to think that we've done things in a good way and were lucky to have our audience... but there is that aspect of saturation. I was talking to someone else about this in another interview recently. When we began, we were witnessing the beginning of changes within the industry, so we sort of experienced the tail-end of "how things were" and also the benefits and drawbacks of "how things became." But this is something that we realized pretty early on. With Witching Hour, for example: It is often thought of as our best record, I think it is in a way and I really like it, though I actually prefer the new one. What people don't understand is that we were touring that record for two years and we had been completely orphaned by our label, so we didn't have any marketing whatsoever besides a couple of copies being let out in the first months. What we found and what kept us going was that we went on tour. The tour we did in the states in 2006, we were told by our management that it wouldn't work and it wasn't viable and we went and did two sellout tours across the States and Canada with absolutely no backup at all and it made us realize how things had changed. And not just for us. The audience was clearly there, but it was still not apparent to the old-school industry people... even though we were seeing it with our own eyes. That changed a lot for us, it made us realize that we could keep on touring and making records as long as we found it fun, which is obviously quite a fortunate position to be in.
How will it be touring this record?
I'm looking forward to it. We made a conscious decision to not do so much because we really hammered the last two records. We wanted to just limit how much we did to give ourselves more chance to breathe. Obviously that means we can't play everywhere and it is a shame sometimes, but often that's not our decision. It's basically down to promoters. For example we've got no Texas gigs on this U.S tour. I know it can be quite frustrating for our audience. We decided to be a bit more careful this time because I think it was basically from 2005 to 2009 where we just hammered it, where we were never off the road.
It's hard to have a real life outside of that.
It gets difficult. This is part of the problem now: the pressure on musicians. There's this assumption that its all fine because everyone just goes on tour and they make their living that way but really you are up against every other band now. Every other band now that ever existed and is still alive and on tour. And there's only so many venues and so much money to go around and also it's like, if you're going to be doing this, what's the point if you've got no life at home? So it also puts a pressure on the creativity. No one is going to make good records if they are on tour for 10 months a year. So we've been lucky enough to look at that situation and make some choices, which has helped us. We have seen both sides. We've basically done that for four or five years, so we are going to pick and choose from now on.
The record is out in September. What will happen next for you?
Our North American tour starts in Mexico, and then through the U.S and Canada in September to October, and then we have a little bit of a break, and then it looks like we are doing South America and Australia and New Zealand and maybe a little bit of Asia before we hit Christmas and then... well, then we will deserve a rest.
Source
Progress Report: Ladytron's Daniel Hunt discusses the group's fantastic new album Gravity the Seducer and examines the relative joys and pains of making music with the same band for well over a decade.
Since releasing their first EP in 1999, Ladytron have consistently conjured up seamlessly beautiful electro-pop equally suitable for dance floors and séances. Earlier this year the band released Best of 00-10 — a sprawling 33 track deluxe treatment documenting the band's excellent first decade. This October they will release their fifth studio album, Gravity the Seducer — a moody, sensual, cool-as-ice collection of songs that should further cement their position of contemporary music's finest purveyors of erudite pop music. We called up founding member Daniel Hunt to discuss.Hey Daniel! What part of the world are you in right now?
I'm in Liverpool. It's good to be back home for a while.
I'm in NY right now, where the temperature is approximately 1000 degrees today.
Oh I wish! We've had our four days of summer here. This is my first British summer here for years, so I'm making the most of it.
What can you say about the making of this album? Was it a vastly different experience from previous albums?
It felt a little bit easier because the three previous albums, the previous one in particular, we ended up touring for a long time. We toured Witching Hour for way longer than we were expecting to and we were literally off the road for about a week before we were already in the studio. Obviously we already had material written prior to that so it wasn't like we were working for scratch. But it also wasn't like there was a lot of time to go and live normally and recharge and whatever. This one we actually finished a year ago and it was mixed and mastered in October. The delay here is really just an issue of scheduling. We had a "best of" compilation out at the time, so it didn't make sense to release this new record so soon. We have been sitting on it for a while, I'm just glad people are able to hear some of it already because we were dying to get it out there.
That must feel strange. There is always that weird limbo period between when something is finished and the time it actually gets released.
Yeah, it was probably more acute this time because I had just came away with such a good feeling about the record and I was desperate to hear it. It has been quite frustrating to us. But we came away with a really good feeling about it, I think looking at it a year later and as objectively as I can, it is definitely our most coherent piece of work. It's definitely the least, I don't know how to say this without misleading, but you know previously we may have had one eye on making sure some kind of commercial "boxes" we needed to check. Even if it wasn't overt, we would still have some sort of eye on thinking about what might happen with certain tracks commercially or whatever. I think that's as much as my band would admit to. I think that this time we didn't do it at all to be honest and the end result was something that we all were happier with … so it will be interesting to see how it is received. I just feel that as soon as you step away from those kinds of constraints things get so much better … but obviously with the way things are these days, I don't quite blame people for kind of playing it safe in that respect. Once you step away from that, I don't know, the quality of work increases and you got to give the audience the benefit of the doubt that they will appreciate that and that they will appreciate the development and appreciate the extra levels of work. The best thing I can do to gauge this is to play it to my friends and the response so far has been really positive … so I'm happy.
Well the record has a very seamless quality to it. I mean it seems very much of a piece.That was what we wanted. That is the kind of record we wanted to make. There's still a lot of variation in it though. Our albums in the past have been quite intentionally disjointed and they worked to a point in that way, but this one is way more coherent. There are still quite the extremes, you know. For example "90 Degrees" and "Melting Ice" appear very close together on the record, but they basically represent the two extremes in terms of styles on the record. When it comes to the structure of it — the sequence and everything — we are old fashioned, we are traditionalists, we like the idea of people sitting and listening to records all the way through which is not a particularly fashionable viewpoint these days but we don't know how else to do it.
How was the record recorded? Do you guys have your own studio now?
Yeah. We've always had our own studio, but when we think things are about 60-70% finished, we take it somewhere else to complete the recording. We did the first album in Wales, the second one we did in L.A, for the third one we remained in Liverpool, the fourth one we did in Paris and this one we did in Kent with Barny Barnicott. He now has his own house in the countryside where he moved a studio from London that was closing down — he basically got all the gear from there and transplanted it in the middle of the country. When we made it we all lived in different places: three members of the band were living in London, while I was living in Italy until two months ago. So, the idea of us having a studio as a home base wasn't really applicable.
That does change things. When everyone lives in different cities you really have to plan. It's not like you just turn up in the afternoons and jam and see what happens.
Exactly, but we have never really done that to be honest. We have always lived all over. Now there's three of us in London. At the very beginning there was three in Liverpool, and I think that was the closest we have all ever lived within proximity including the house in Italy for almost five years. The last two records were made while I was up there.
Has your process as a band changed radically over the years? How do you guys tend to write music? Do you all write together? Does everyone bring their own bits and you sort of play around with them?Yeah, everyone brings their own bits in — either complete tracks, or it's like 'I brought a song in and it needs working up and producing' or 'here is an instrumental that doesn't have a vocal.' You know, here's part of something that needs something else. It's different every time. I think that what has developed over time is that everyone is a lot more confident with putting in all these completed demos to work from. At the very beginning it was more my responsibility to tie everything together. It still kind of was with this record, in terms of bringing the threads together. But everyone is a lot more confident in the studio now, so I guess that's just development naturally over time. It's not really any conscious change in process, just getting better at it and not wasting time on the things that don't really make a difference — like concentrating on the actual sounds rather then this musical alchemy.
Its interesting thinking back to when I first saw you guys play in New York which was in the early-2000's I guess and when the Best Of compilation came out it really made me think about how long you've been doing this. I bought 604 right after I moved to NYC. I was a baby!
That's why we released the compilation: to make everyone feel old.
Is it hard to believe that you guys have been making music together for well over a decade now?
Well, yes. I kind of resent "best of" compilations in general. I was thinking back and there have been some compilations that felt important in a band's back catalogue when it didn't just seem like repackaging old songs for commercial purposes but it actually felt important. For example, Songs To Learn And Sing for Echo and the Bunnymen. It was kind of like ushering in the second wave of their audience. The Smiths compilations, for example. I guess I'm thinking of mostly bands from the '80s. Anyhow, we thought, well there is a positive way of doing this and since we've been together so long, there was probably a lot of our audience who wasn't even aware of the majority of our material. So we made a choice of putting together a compilation that we felt was immediate and wasn't just a selection of singles. We put the tracks that we thought should have been singles even if they weren't and often they correlated with the tracks that were well liked amongst our audience, so that made sense. And also it was a chance to draw a line in the sand, really. I mean this new record is different. It still sounds like us but it is different. You know the last thing we want to do is to be making the same record. It was nice to be able to put what we've done in a new context — over ten years of work — that had some benefit beyond trying to just sell some records.
I think its cool that as a band you have a really great trajectory in terms of building on the strength of each successive album. It seems like you have developed a really devoted fan base that has grown very organically, which is not easy to do now. I feel like it's harder and harder for bands to do that now, not only because we're even more obsessed with only what is "new" now more than ever, but also because there are just so many bands … and thanks to the internet, we are inundated with hearing about all of them all the time.
Yeah, that is certainly part of it. I like to think that we've done things in a good way and were lucky to have our audience... but there is that aspect of saturation. I was talking to someone else about this in another interview recently. When we began, we were witnessing the beginning of changes within the industry, so we sort of experienced the tail-end of "how things were" and also the benefits and drawbacks of "how things became." But this is something that we realized pretty early on. With Witching Hour, for example: It is often thought of as our best record, I think it is in a way and I really like it, though I actually prefer the new one. What people don't understand is that we were touring that record for two years and we had been completely orphaned by our label, so we didn't have any marketing whatsoever besides a couple of copies being let out in the first months. What we found and what kept us going was that we went on tour. The tour we did in the states in 2006, we were told by our management that it wouldn't work and it wasn't viable and we went and did two sellout tours across the States and Canada with absolutely no backup at all and it made us realize how things had changed. And not just for us. The audience was clearly there, but it was still not apparent to the old-school industry people... even though we were seeing it with our own eyes. That changed a lot for us, it made us realize that we could keep on touring and making records as long as we found it fun, which is obviously quite a fortunate position to be in.How will it be touring this record?
I'm looking forward to it. We made a conscious decision to not do so much because we really hammered the last two records. We wanted to just limit how much we did to give ourselves more chance to breathe. Obviously that means we can't play everywhere and it is a shame sometimes, but often that's not our decision. It's basically down to promoters. For example we've got no Texas gigs on this U.S tour. I know it can be quite frustrating for our audience. We decided to be a bit more careful this time because I think it was basically from 2005 to 2009 where we just hammered it, where we were never off the road.
It's hard to have a real life outside of that.It gets difficult. This is part of the problem now: the pressure on musicians. There's this assumption that its all fine because everyone just goes on tour and they make their living that way but really you are up against every other band now. Every other band now that ever existed and is still alive and on tour. And there's only so many venues and so much money to go around and also it's like, if you're going to be doing this, what's the point if you've got no life at home? So it also puts a pressure on the creativity. No one is going to make good records if they are on tour for 10 months a year. So we've been lucky enough to look at that situation and make some choices, which has helped us. We have seen both sides. We've basically done that for four or five years, so we are going to pick and choose from now on.
The record is out in September. What will happen next for you?
Our North American tour starts in Mexico, and then through the U.S and Canada in September to October, and then we have a little bit of a break, and then it looks like we are doing South America and Australia and New Zealand and maybe a little bit of Asia before we hit Christmas and then... well, then we will deserve a rest.
Source
22 August 2011
21 August 2011
Ladytron - Peel Session, 2002
Format: MP3, VBR 140 kbps
Track listing:
1. True Mathematics
2. Evil
3. USA vs. White Noise
4. Blue Jeans
Download
Track listing:
1. True Mathematics
2. Evil
3. USA vs. White Noise
4. Blue Jeans
Download
Ladytron - Peel Session, 2001
Format: MP3, 128 kbps CBR
Track listing:
1. Zmeyka
2. Holiday 601
3. Another Breakfast With You
4. Discotraxx
Download
Track listing:
1. Zmeyka
2. Holiday 601
3. Another Breakfast With You
4. Discotraxx
Download
19 August 2011
Rocksucker interview (2011)
"The best of British pop music" – that's how Brian Eno, no less, once described Merseyside electropop institution Ladytron. That's no small praise, especially considering that the band took their name from a song off Roxy Music's classic debut album. Premature though it may be to describe Ladytron as legends, the release earlier this year of career retrospective Best of 00-10 served to confirm just what a glorious niche they've carved out for themselves since they were so idly lumped in with the electroclash movement of the early noughties.
If that compilation can be seen as closing a chapter in their history then, goodness, they haven't half been quick to open up another – in fact, though it does not see the light of day until September 12th, Ladytron's fifth studio album Gravity the Seducer was also completed earlier this year. As is the way with these things nowadays, they've been forced to sit on it for a while at the behest of various market forces but a steady drip-feed of tantalising singles has cranked up the anticipation to almost unbearable levels amongst the group's dedicated and by-now-considerable fan base.
Rest assured, though, that the time is nigh for Ladytron to once again cement their place at the very forefront of dreamy, electronic pop music on these shores, or indeed any other you'd care to mention. As such, Rocksucker caught up with lead singer Helen Marnie to discuss Gravity the Seducer, the media's attempts to categorise the band's sound and why she'd think twice about sharing a stage with confirmed Ladytron enthusiast Christina Aguilera...
You've just come back from what looks like it must have been quite an exhausting tour. How was it for you? Where had the best crowd? How do you get the energy levels back up for your American tour?
Yeah, our touring this year started at the end of April with a one-night trip to Beijing to play a festival there. Since then we've done lots of European dates, festivals, and managed to squeeze in a short UK tour as well. I think the best crowds of the summer have been in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the Selector Festival in Poland. They were both fun gigs. As for North America, we get a great reception over there so we're all really looking forward to going on the road for four weeks. It's like being in a little gang for a while, and you kind of feed off one another.
What was the thinking behind releasing a Best Of just a few months before a new studio album?
We'd had a bit of a break from touring Velocifero so it seemed like a good time to release a Best Of package to keep fans interested and to also set up the new album. We also couldn't pass on releasing an album which celebrated us over the last ten years. How many bands are lucky enough to get to do that? Releasing the deluxe version with the photo booklet actually made me quite nostalgic. When we were collating the photos, it was like the story of Ladytron through the years.
What can we expect from Gravity the Seducer? Would you say that "Ace of Hz", "Ambulances" and "White Elephant" are good indicators? Is it true that there will be a different version of "Ace of Hz" on the album?
Gravity the Seducer is a journey from beginning to end. Songs flow into one another as if they belong. The songs released so far are an insight into the album and instrumentally there are recurring sounds, along with themes. There is an alternative "Ace of Hz" which features on the album.
What can you tell us about the "dramatic arc" that holds the album together?
Reoccurring themes weave throughout, with the sounds of organs, bells, and strings. These ideas and sounds, along with lush, full vocals, make the album complete.
How frustrating and/or nerve-wracking is it to complete an album and then have to wait until several months until its release?
It's always frustrating when there is a long delay between studio completion and release date. The release of the Best Of made the wait a little longer, but hopefully people will appreciate the album when it's released in September and will think it's been worth the wait. There really is not a lot that can be done about it. Everything needs to be done properly and set up in order to make the greatest impact. For us, we're just excited that it will finally be released and we're moving forward concentrating on the new.
Looking back, which of your previous albums are you most proud of? And why? Which one involved the biggest workload?
It's hard to choose, but I think Witching Hour was a turning point for us all. It kind of took Ladytron in a new, exciting direction. Personally, I feel that vocally it was a more demanding record and it pushed me more than previous studio albums, which was good as it made me a more confident singer. All in all I think it was more representative of Ladytron as four individuals.
Were you uncomfortable with the media lumping you in with the electroclash movement during your early days? In a way, did this kind of stereotyping inform the subsequent progression of the band's sound?
We were always lumped in with bands we sounded nothing like and often didn't have much in common with. That was what made us uncomfortable. For that reason, we just tried to avoid any connection with the term. Our sound is never reactionary to outside elements, it's always natural and down to experiences. Velocifero had a harder, more live sound due to the immense amount of touring we did before going in to record that album.
How does it feel to have Brian Eno describe you as "the best of British pop music"? Might you ever collaborate with him?
Wow, it's amazing for anyone to say that about us but coming from Brian Eno it's rather special. I'm sure Brian Eno is far too busy to find time to write with us, though it would be great.
Apparently Christina Aguilera has said that she intends to attend your LA show in September. Might you get her up onstage and do [the Ladytron-produced] "Birds of Prey"?
Haha. There's no way I would be able to sing after Christina Aguilera. She'd blow me off the stage. She came to our last LA gig though, so it would be nice to have her there again.
Are there any up-and-coming artists you'd like to give a shout out to?
No. Apart from my friend Land of Bingo.
Finally, could you name – as of this very moment – your top three albums of all time?
Hmmmm. Joni Mitchell - Song to a Seagull. Heart - Dreamboat Annie. Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim.
Helen, thank you.
Source
Rest assured, though, that the time is nigh for Ladytron to once again cement their place at the very forefront of dreamy, electronic pop music on these shores, or indeed any other you'd care to mention. As such, Rocksucker caught up with lead singer Helen Marnie to discuss Gravity the Seducer, the media's attempts to categorise the band's sound and why she'd think twice about sharing a stage with confirmed Ladytron enthusiast Christina Aguilera...
You've just come back from what looks like it must have been quite an exhausting tour. How was it for you? Where had the best crowd? How do you get the energy levels back up for your American tour?
Yeah, our touring this year started at the end of April with a one-night trip to Beijing to play a festival there. Since then we've done lots of European dates, festivals, and managed to squeeze in a short UK tour as well. I think the best crowds of the summer have been in St. Petersburg, Russia, and the Selector Festival in Poland. They were both fun gigs. As for North America, we get a great reception over there so we're all really looking forward to going on the road for four weeks. It's like being in a little gang for a while, and you kind of feed off one another.
What was the thinking behind releasing a Best Of just a few months before a new studio album?
We'd had a bit of a break from touring Velocifero so it seemed like a good time to release a Best Of package to keep fans interested and to also set up the new album. We also couldn't pass on releasing an album which celebrated us over the last ten years. How many bands are lucky enough to get to do that? Releasing the deluxe version with the photo booklet actually made me quite nostalgic. When we were collating the photos, it was like the story of Ladytron through the years.
What can we expect from Gravity the Seducer? Would you say that "Ace of Hz", "Ambulances" and "White Elephant" are good indicators? Is it true that there will be a different version of "Ace of Hz" on the album?
Gravity the Seducer is a journey from beginning to end. Songs flow into one another as if they belong. The songs released so far are an insight into the album and instrumentally there are recurring sounds, along with themes. There is an alternative "Ace of Hz" which features on the album.
What can you tell us about the "dramatic arc" that holds the album together?
Reoccurring themes weave throughout, with the sounds of organs, bells, and strings. These ideas and sounds, along with lush, full vocals, make the album complete.
How frustrating and/or nerve-wracking is it to complete an album and then have to wait until several months until its release?
It's always frustrating when there is a long delay between studio completion and release date. The release of the Best Of made the wait a little longer, but hopefully people will appreciate the album when it's released in September and will think it's been worth the wait. There really is not a lot that can be done about it. Everything needs to be done properly and set up in order to make the greatest impact. For us, we're just excited that it will finally be released and we're moving forward concentrating on the new.
It's hard to choose, but I think Witching Hour was a turning point for us all. It kind of took Ladytron in a new, exciting direction. Personally, I feel that vocally it was a more demanding record and it pushed me more than previous studio albums, which was good as it made me a more confident singer. All in all I think it was more representative of Ladytron as four individuals.
Were you uncomfortable with the media lumping you in with the electroclash movement during your early days? In a way, did this kind of stereotyping inform the subsequent progression of the band's sound?
We were always lumped in with bands we sounded nothing like and often didn't have much in common with. That was what made us uncomfortable. For that reason, we just tried to avoid any connection with the term. Our sound is never reactionary to outside elements, it's always natural and down to experiences. Velocifero had a harder, more live sound due to the immense amount of touring we did before going in to record that album.
How does it feel to have Brian Eno describe you as "the best of British pop music"? Might you ever collaborate with him?
Wow, it's amazing for anyone to say that about us but coming from Brian Eno it's rather special. I'm sure Brian Eno is far too busy to find time to write with us, though it would be great.
Apparently Christina Aguilera has said that she intends to attend your LA show in September. Might you get her up onstage and do [the Ladytron-produced] "Birds of Prey"?
Haha. There's no way I would be able to sing after Christina Aguilera. She'd blow me off the stage. She came to our last LA gig though, so it would be nice to have her there again.
Are there any up-and-coming artists you'd like to give a shout out to?
No. Apart from my friend Land of Bingo.
Finally, could you name – as of this very moment – your top three albums of all time?
Hmmmm. Joni Mitchell - Song to a Seagull. Heart - Dreamboat Annie. Laura Marling - Alas I Cannot Swim.
Helen, thank you.
Source
07 August 2011
Scene Magazine interview (2009)
"We still get the same crap hotel rooms and the same crap riders", laughs Wu. "They never get better and they never get worse. One thing we did find when we toured last year was that advance ticket sales were lower than usual, but on the days of the gigs, a whole lot of kids decided to come and see the band. We ended up selling out most of the dates on the tour. Everyone needs rock music, and it's survival of the fittest".
Wu is happy to claim his band's place atop the Darwinian food chain, but doesn't necessarily agree that they can take all the credit (blame?) for today's electro-saturated musical landscape. "Yeah, there are a lot of bands out there who probably wouldn't sound the way they do if we didn't happen", he concedes. "But I think at the same time, a lot of those bands wouldn't sound like that if things hadn't happened between 1979 and 1984. We're by no means the genesis of electropop, we just managed to repopularise it.
"But the other thing that's happened in the wake of electroclash is that it's made electronic instruments acceptable in mainstream music. Remember when Madonna released that electro track? So many bands have synthesizers and keyboards now, but they don't really see it as electropop anymore. They just see it as pop".
Similarly, Ladytron haven't seen themselves as an electropop band for quite some time now. Most critics pin that evolution to last year's 'Velocifero' (their fourth LP, which literally translates to 'bringer of speed') and its ubiquitous single, 'Ghosts'. They're wrong.
"That didn't happen during this album. That happened during the second album (2002's 'Light & Magic'). Our record had been out for awhile, and we were getting all this press saying we were the pioneers of this thing that was happening in New York. Our attitude was, 'ok, we're doing our own thing, and we're not part of any scene'... I think 'Light & Magic' bookended that whole period for us. It was like, 'that's out of the way, let's not think about that anymore'. We've really developed and evolved our sound on an album-by-album basis since then".
That evolution has brought them to Brian Eno's notice. Eno, the avant-garde pioneer who played on the Roxy Music track Ladytron takes its name from, has handpicked the band to take part in his 'Luminous' festival. "It's quite an interesting story, actually", Wu says. Normally such a statement precedes an incredibly dull story, but he isn't lying.
"Helen and Mira were loading stuff into their car after a show in Oxford when a girl came up to them and introduced herself as Brian Eno's daughter. She said she was a fan of the band and that she'd gotten her dad into us, which was pretty exciting. A couple of days later, we got a call from Eno's people asking if we wanted to play the Sydney Opera House. And it's entirely down to the kids keeping dad cool!" Naturally, after nearly a decade of world tours, this isn't Wu's first trip Down Under.
"This'll be my fifth time in Australia. Eventually I want to drive across the outback, but you never know what's going to happen. I'm worried I'll be murdered". It's 2012. Wu survives an ordeal in the Australian outback and lives to write an album about it. It's a success, inspiring hundreds of imitators. Nobody is surprised.
Source
05 August 2011
The Guardian interview (2002)
Ladytron's image of frosty European hauteur and black-clad cool is crumpled somewhat by the fact that they are the clumsiest band in Britain. "One time we came on stage to 'Paranoid' by Black Sabbath", recalls Mira Aroyo, a Bulgarian geneticist who recently completed her PhD at Oxford University. "It was going to be our great moment, but I tripped over the monitors. Then Danny came out and landed on top of me. Our tour manager had to pick us up and place us in front of our synthesizers".
"It's a common problem", Helen Marnie accepts. She recalls the time when Mira tried to solve a problem with her synthesiser on stage with a screwdriver, and yanked it so hard that it flew backwards and hit band member Danny Hunt in the face". There was blood everywhere, and that screwdriver could have gone in his eye. Imagine if we had actually killed him on stage! That would have been awful".
It's a Monday afternoon, and the neatly turned-out female members of Ladytron are drinking Bailey's from champagne glasses in Mira's Shoreditch flat. Piles of records are stacked up against the minibar, and Helen has brought along a few of her favourites to play over the course of the afternoon. Amongst them are Whitney Houston's 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody' and Belinda Carlisle's 'Heaven Is a Place on Earth'. "That's me when I was younger", says Helen, who is a classically trained pianist. "Michael Jackson - why not? I would wake up, get ready for school, and listen to The Bangles, Carly Simon and ABBA. Then when I got older and more sophisticated, it was Madonna and Michael Jackson".
"I grew up with Woody Guthrie and Neil Young because that was what my parents liked, but I used to listen to the Birthday Party before school, mainly to annoy them", says Mira, whose musical tastes are a little darker than those of her fellow band member". I listened to Sonic Youth a lot too, and 'Surrender' by Cheap Trick. It's real high-school rock, and it was the thing that all the cool boys liked, along with Black Sabbath". Helen and Mira share a fondness for Jeff Wayne's epic concept album, The War of the Worlds. "Danny and I slept in Jeff Wayne's studio one night for some reason", says Mira. "We were looking at this album cover before we went to bed and we both had nightmares. But it's the campest combination ever: Victorian gentlemen and Martians".
"I like Watership Down as well", offers Helen, innocently. All four members of Ladytron like pure pop with a dark edge. The evidence for this is on Light & Magic, the album they recently completed in Los Angeles, recording in a cockroach-infested, granite-walled studio with a pool outside. "LA is very much like a David Lynch movie", says Mira. "It's a strange place, because you can't go for a walk there - as soon as you stop by the traffic lights, some freak starts hassling you".
The LA trip made the band, who had previously been steeped in European culture, realise that much of their shared influences have come from the States. "'Be My Baby' by The Ronettes is probably the song that really does it for us, because it is so simple while working perfectly", says Helen. "We all like Phil Spector, and what brought us together in the first place was the idea of combining synthesizers with traditional pop structures, hooks and melodies. Our American producer showed us that Shannon made electronic music that was just as good as Kraftwerk or The Normal".
Mira and Helen have records by a host of female singers, among them Dolly Parton, Joni Mitchell, Nancy Sinatra and Kate Bush. "Kate Bush is amazing, there's no one like her", says Helen. "As for Joni Mitchell, she's one for the girls. Boys just can't understand her".
Mira pulls out a decrepit copy of Syd Barrett's The Madcap Laughs, its corrugated cover a result of being left out in the rain when she was at university. "My favourite ever record", she says. "There's something very English about it. Barrett did a song called 'Have You Got It Yet?' with Pink Floyd, in which he kept changing the time signatures over the course of a few days, and all he said as they practised was, 'Have you got it yet?' He's meant to be mad, but moments like that make it clear he had some sort of genius".
Serge Gainsbourg is another favourite. Mira and Helen recount the tale of Gainsbourg appearing on television, drunk and dishevelled, with a prim Whitney Houston, who was less than impressed with his unsubtle seduction technique. Mira went to see Jane Birkin, Gainsbourg's former lover and co-singer on 'Je T'Aime... Moi Non Plus', a couple of years ago at a London concert. "I really, really love Jane Birkin, and it was a bit disappointing really because she only did one song".
Source
"It's a common problem", Helen Marnie accepts. She recalls the time when Mira tried to solve a problem with her synthesiser on stage with a screwdriver, and yanked it so hard that it flew backwards and hit band member Danny Hunt in the face". There was blood everywhere, and that screwdriver could have gone in his eye. Imagine if we had actually killed him on stage! That would have been awful".It's a Monday afternoon, and the neatly turned-out female members of Ladytron are drinking Bailey's from champagne glasses in Mira's Shoreditch flat. Piles of records are stacked up against the minibar, and Helen has brought along a few of her favourites to play over the course of the afternoon. Amongst them are Whitney Houston's 'I Wanna Dance With Somebody' and Belinda Carlisle's 'Heaven Is a Place on Earth'. "That's me when I was younger", says Helen, who is a classically trained pianist. "Michael Jackson - why not? I would wake up, get ready for school, and listen to The Bangles, Carly Simon and ABBA. Then when I got older and more sophisticated, it was Madonna and Michael Jackson".
"I grew up with Woody Guthrie and Neil Young because that was what my parents liked, but I used to listen to the Birthday Party before school, mainly to annoy them", says Mira, whose musical tastes are a little darker than those of her fellow band member". I listened to Sonic Youth a lot too, and 'Surrender' by Cheap Trick. It's real high-school rock, and it was the thing that all the cool boys liked, along with Black Sabbath". Helen and Mira share a fondness for Jeff Wayne's epic concept album, The War of the Worlds. "Danny and I slept in Jeff Wayne's studio one night for some reason", says Mira. "We were looking at this album cover before we went to bed and we both had nightmares. But it's the campest combination ever: Victorian gentlemen and Martians".
"I like Watership Down as well", offers Helen, innocently. All four members of Ladytron like pure pop with a dark edge. The evidence for this is on Light & Magic, the album they recently completed in Los Angeles, recording in a cockroach-infested, granite-walled studio with a pool outside. "LA is very much like a David Lynch movie", says Mira. "It's a strange place, because you can't go for a walk there - as soon as you stop by the traffic lights, some freak starts hassling you".The LA trip made the band, who had previously been steeped in European culture, realise that much of their shared influences have come from the States. "'Be My Baby' by The Ronettes is probably the song that really does it for us, because it is so simple while working perfectly", says Helen. "We all like Phil Spector, and what brought us together in the first place was the idea of combining synthesizers with traditional pop structures, hooks and melodies. Our American producer showed us that Shannon made electronic music that was just as good as Kraftwerk or The Normal".
Mira and Helen have records by a host of female singers, among them Dolly Parton, Joni Mitchell, Nancy Sinatra and Kate Bush. "Kate Bush is amazing, there's no one like her", says Helen. "As for Joni Mitchell, she's one for the girls. Boys just can't understand her".
Mira pulls out a decrepit copy of Syd Barrett's The Madcap Laughs, its corrugated cover a result of being left out in the rain when she was at university. "My favourite ever record", she says. "There's something very English about it. Barrett did a song called 'Have You Got It Yet?' with Pink Floyd, in which he kept changing the time signatures over the course of a few days, and all he said as they practised was, 'Have you got it yet?' He's meant to be mad, but moments like that make it clear he had some sort of genius".Serge Gainsbourg is another favourite. Mira and Helen recount the tale of Gainsbourg appearing on television, drunk and dishevelled, with a prim Whitney Houston, who was less than impressed with his unsubtle seduction technique. Mira went to see Jane Birkin, Gainsbourg's former lover and co-singer on 'Je T'Aime... Moi Non Plus', a couple of years ago at a London concert. "I really, really love Jane Birkin, and it was a bit disappointing really because she only did one song".
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