Voxy.co.nz interview (2010)

I would like to invite everyone to the wonderful world of Ladytron music. I am very lucky and honoured to have been able to get an interview with Reuben Wu from the electro pop/new wave band Ladytron. Ladytron are a band from the United Kingdom which came together in 1999. They are Mira Aroyo, Daniel Hunt, Helen Marnie & Reuben Wu. Mira, Daniel & Reuben are DJs who play sets all over the world. In my opinion Ladytron are a band that has changed the electro pop scene of today with their blissfully unique sound. They have a very strong internet presence which has helped give them a huge international appeal. They have a cult following (this is why I want to share) the true success of this band is in hearing them for the first time!

They have toured with the likes of Nine Inch Nails and remixed songs for bands such as Blondie, Gang of Four & Placebo. I have seen them play twice in concert (whilst living in London) as once was not enough for me. They are the future of electro pop music as they have massive appeal to be relistened to without being boring. I am glad that I found them while browsing on MySpace back in 2006. The first single that I heard of them was "Seventeen" off the album Light & Magic.

The band has released four studio albums: 604 (2001), Light & Magic (2002), Witching Hour (2005) and Velocifero (2008) they have also released their first live album Live at the London Astoria 16.07.08 (2009). I would like to thank Agatha from Redbird Management for making this interview with Reuben Wu from Ladytron possible! Please check out the interview below:

Hi Reuben! Thank you for taking the time from your busy schedule to be featured on the Voxy website in New Zealand! It means a lot to me! I am going to ask some questions for you to answer on behalf of Ladytron. What do you think of the current state of modern music? I like the way that Ladytron music pushes forth for new and exciting sounds! What do you think about where you are heading to in the new scene?

I'm really enjoying a few bands at the moment, for example Yeasayer and their album Odd Blood and Phoenix and their album Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Also really liking "USA Boys" by Health at the moment and have been listening to the Neon Indian album for a good few months now. The scene is generally the same, most of the music people listen to is generally mediocre with a few interesting bands and artists creating cool stuff on the sidelines and getting attention over the internet and independent media.

When Ladytron constructs a song I often wonder what comes first the layers of the music or are the lyrics thrown out there first for a majority of the songs? How do you guys typically create the music? Is it a lot of sampling each other's ideas in the creation process?

Every song is written differently. There's never one method but we do work individually first and then work as a group on the tracks together in the studio.
Sometimes it's a keyboard riff which develops into a song, other times it's a vocal melody or a lyrically idea. Anything goes.

Are you guys recording a new compilation of songs? Do you have an album title in the works? I heard through the grapevine that there will be some new material coming out soon.

We've just finished two brand new songs which will be included on the compilation which will be coming out soon. It's basically a collection of our own songs spanning from when we started in 1999 until 2010. We're also working on our fifth studio album which should be released next year.

With all of the touring that Ladytron is doing is there a favourite place that the band likes to play? Also what would we expect to hear in one of your own DJ sets these days? I know that each band member likes to DJ & play gigs at various venues around the globe.

We love playing cities like New York and Los Angeles because it's so familiar and full of our friends, but I really love playing places we've never been before. Last year we got to play a show at the Sydney Opera House which was pretty special. I'd really like to play more countries in South East Asia and South America. Visiting NZ again would be great too, I'd love to explore the North Island.

Who are some of the best bands that you have been on tour with that you have all felt that you have shared an experience with? Ladytron has toured with so many amazing bands which one did you have a connection to that was the most memorable?

The one that sticks out in my memories is probably supporting Nine Inch Nails in UK and Europe. Every show was playing to thousands of people most of whom had never heard of us, and I think we gained a lot from it. They are all really cool people and we've made some good friendships from that time. The other one was probably our first ever tour, supporting Soulwax in 2000. It was our first experience of being on the road and although we are not the same band as we were then, it was definitely one of my best memories of touring.

Are there any bands that you would like to collaborate, remix or work with in the near future? I love a lot of the remixes that you have done with popular indie bands as you like to bring out many textures and sounds to a song which makes it highly attractive to listen too again. It is no easy feat!

We really enjoy remixing other artists but right now we're concentrating on working on our own album. In terms of real collaboration I think we will do more of this once the record is finished.

When I was first introduced to your music I had discovered your band online. (On MySpace) Have you found that a lot of your listeners have been exposed to your sound online, and then come to your shows on the strength of your internet presence?

Yes completely, we are very lucky to have quite a global following due to early internet presence amongst other things and this is especially important in countries where our music is not distributed widely. Finding that our very first shows in some countries have yielded huge audiences is a really nice surprise, for example in countries like Brazil, Colombia and even USA and Australia.

Thank you so much for taking the time in your busy schedule to answer these questions! Where do you like to play live the most? Do you prefer playing in music festivals, amphitheatres or indoor venues? I know it may be a different experience for the Ladytron sound in each setup.

We like them all, just so long as we can get a decent sound check!

Wishing you all the very best on your up-coming tours and with the compilation album that is in progress. I am looking forward to the fifth Ladytron album. Thank you very much for answering my questions Reuben!

Thanks.

Source

Emily Strange interview (2006)

Emily pulled out her blueprints and put them on the table in her basement. The collected pile of debris from three weeks of scavenger hunting sat in nine boxes in the corner by the water heater. Miles sniffed around the front boxes but figured out pretty quickly this thing was going to make some noise.

Looking closely over the rolls of blueprints, Emily checks off the list of items.
- LCD screens, 2.5 inch, preferably cracked (2)
- Amplifiers, more the better
- Dice, 9 sided (23)
- Yaya 604e computer processor
- Teleoperated remote control device
- Red vinyl records (13)
- Organic organ soundmixer (hard to find, see Zenith)
- Nine E.V.I.L. reverb synthesizers

Staring off into her imagination, Emily pictures this new invention to replace any conventional lightshow with a new audio/video inhibitor that shapes light from the music it is playing. It will work perfectly with any soundmixer specializing in cracked glass and bottomless feedback. Emily snaps back to reality for a second and remembers to contact long-time gadget cohorts Ladytron about her new gizmo working with their custom-built White Light Re-generator. "I bet Ladytron will really dig having this on their current tour".

After typing in a seventeen minute text message on The Oddisee's rotary cell phone, Emily hits send. "Hey guess what, I'm making a portable Light B(l)ender - it would be great for your current tour! I'll let you use it if you answer these questions that have been itching the back of my brain for a while now though..."

Emily: What's the difference between the midnight hour and the witching hour?

Mira: Witching Hour has a different kind of light. The Moon has a great effect on people. Witching Hour also refers to the period in the Middle Ages when Witches were persecuted.

Helen: Witching Hour is when the witches and gremlins and warlocks and black cats come out to play. It's always a full moon. Unlike the midnight hour.

What does 'ESP minus CMYK' mean to you?

Mira: REM in YMCA.

Helen: WLTM.

If you boost all the RGB and in your cover art, what do you get?

Mira: Owls kissing.

Helen: Eagles and lizards.

Do you have any cats?

Mira: I have a very pretty but overweight tabby called Chanel.

Helen: I have one Cat. She's very cute, and likes to kiss, a lot.

Have you invented any instruments? Tell me about them...

Mira: No but I have invented many many strains of bacteria and quite a few new genes and proteins.

Helen: Not as yet.

Do you ever use the C-sides of records?

Mira: On the hexagonal records we use the C side for writing notes and the F sides for doodling when I'm bored.

Helen: For secret tracks.

The reason I ask is because my blueprint calls for a very sharp Needle- like a Kat Klaw 361. What kind of turntable needles do you prefer?

Mira: I know what you mean. It is hard to doodle with a diamond so I prefer to use a uranium enriched needle.

Helen: I wouldn't like to use a Kat Klaw. Just a razor sharp needle will do.

Does long exposure to projection screens make your eyes blurry too?

Mira: It makes me see nice patterns when I close my eyes.

Helen: Oh yes. Makes my head want to explode. A bombardment of colour can make you fall over.

Do white light generators ever burn out?

Mira: Yes and then they become black light generators. Sometimes they are more useful anyway. It's always better to burn out than to fade away.

Helen: It's all about the black light.

If you had a choice, 2 or 3 strings on a bass?

Mira: I would have it with a lot of strings like a harp. A bass harp.

Helen: I prefer even numbers.

2 or 3 turntables at once?

Mira: I don't like excess apart from in Prog Rock music so I'd go for 2 though I also enjoy the 1deck ragga soundsystems.

Helen: Seeing as I have 2 hands, then 2 would be good for me.

Hydro or solar powered amps?

Mira: Dynamo powered so we don't depend on anything but our legs and we get a bit of exercise as we don't get to move much when we are on the tour bus.

Helen: Solar powered.

What is your favorite sci-fi movie?

Mira: Solaris. The original Tarkovski version though and not the George Clooney remake. When you get a glimpse of the sky in space it is white. It is also very dry and serious and suddenly there is a scene where a dwarf runs out of a room with no explanation and no one even pays any attention to him.

Helen: Westworld.

What is your favorite time of night?

Mira: When you first hear the birds tweeking just before dawn.

Helen: When the bats start to fly.

What is this?



Mira: It looks like a smile detector.

Helen: Some kind of telescope?

If you were stranded on a mountain top, would you rather have a radio or pen and paper?

Mira: A pen and paper for sure. I love mountaintops and wouldn't want to spoil their silence. The silence on mountaintops has a very special sound.

Helen: I think I'd have a pen and paper. I could write everything down and then fly the words off on the wind.

What is the longest stretch of traveling you have done from one show to the other in less than 24 hours?

Mira: We are about to do LA to Buenos Aires at the end of this tour so I think that would have been the longest.

Helen: That will be the longest.

How often do you write music?

Mira: When the mood strikes me. Can't force it.

Helen: When I feel inspired.

One last question. What password shall I program to activate this Ladytronic lightshow apparatus I built?

Mira: Supercalafragalisticexpialedocious.

Helen: Witching hour soft power.

Source

Ladytron - Bimbo's, San Francisco, 2003

Format: MP3, 320 kbps CBR

Track listing:
01. True Mathematics
02. Playgirl
03. Another Breakfast With You
04. Cracked LCD
05. Blue Jeans
06. He Took Her To a Movie
07. Fire
08. Black Pastic
09. Evil
10. USA vs White Noise
11. Seventeen
12. Discotraxx
13. Turn It On
14. The Way That I Found You
15. Oops Oh My

Download

Little Black Angel

Planet Notion interview (2011)

I defy anyone reading this article who denies listening to Ladytron at some point during their lives. Personally, my seminal Ladytron moment was using their song 'Seventeen' as my profile song on MySpace when I turned, you guessed it, twenty-one. No, joking; I did actually put it on my profile and kept it there for the seventeenth year of my life. Back in the day, everyone was listening to a bit of Le Tigre, and possibly downloaded a couple of New Young Pony Club mp3s, and up there with those femme-pop disco gems were Ladytron. Part of the whole electroclash era (at its most widespread around the late '90s to early '00s) that has continued to influence a variety of music today such as Crystal Castles and The Whip, Ladytron continue to be one of the most influential electronic acts of the past decade. To celebrate their cult success, Daniel Hunt, Reuben Wu, Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo have just released their Best of 00-10 album, as well as a brand new single, "Ace of Hz". AND they've got a brand new LP, Gravity the Seducer, coming this year too. Us lucky ducks got to have a natter with Mira about the past ten years; here's what they had to say:

You've been away for 3 years as a full band even though you've been doing a few individual DJ sets. Where have you been?

We have been DJ'ing all over the world, but also writing and working on our 5th album as well as putting together a 10 year retrospective album with a couple of new songs on it and also a little photo booklet for the limited edition package.

Throughout the years you've been compared to acts such as Kraftwerk and The Human League but who are your influences?

They are very varied, from '60s girl groups to My Bloody Valentine, from '70s prog and folk to obscure disco, from '70s german bands to pop and R'n'B. We have never been interested in recreating anything. There are elements and sounds we have taken from all over the place but the main thing is that we have always wanted to have our own sound and I think we have achieved that.

As figureheads for the 'electroclash' scene, how would you describe that sound?

We never saw ourselves as figureheads of any scene really. The main thing we have in common with other musicians lumped under the same banner is use of synths. We don't really make dance music however, are a band, perform live in a very traditional sense of the word and make albums that are to be listened as a whole, as opposed to a few songs destined for clubs. I also think our music is quite a bit more layered and not as minimal and clean.

You started over 10 years ago. How has Ladytron changed since it began? How have you guys evolved since then?

When we started out we didn't really know where we were going or what we were doing. Everything evolved very instinctively. Our music has become thicker and more layered and varied, as we have learned a lot of things along the way. We have toured all over the world and playing live has had a huge effect on how our music developed. 604, our first record, was written and recorded before we played almost a single gig so it kind of sounds more fragile in a lot of ways. Playing live toughened us up in a lot of ways.

As artists you've seen a rise from cult status into deserved commercial success. But you've always had this aura of remaining on the fringes. Do you see yourselves as trendsetters?

I wouldn't say we are trendsetters in any way, but when we started out there weren't many people making the kind of music we were and we had to justify why were doing it quite a bit, where as now it seems to have seeped into the main stream. There weren't many bands using synths in the way we were 10 years ago and now you hear certain sounds and production everywhere.

Why do you guys prefer to use old school analogue tech rather than go digital?

We don't really use only old school analogue stuff. We record digitally and use all sorts of digital instruments when we need to too. We are not purists in any sense. We just like the sound of old synths and organs and the way you play them and work with them, so we end up using them a lot. They give you a much warmer sound and we like the element of unpredictability you get and also the uniqueness of the sounds. Often we cannot recreate sounds that we have used once on a record. It's a case of you get a good sound, use it and record it as you might not be able to get it again.

Your songs feature in loads of computer games; what do you think makes Ladytron so popular for these soundtracks?

Computer games have evolved so much in the time we have existed as a band. They are much more cinematic nowadays and so look for creating an atmosphere and a mood. I guess our music gives them that. Also we probably have fans amongst the people compiling these soundtracks and so they use our songs. In a way our music is also very universal as it is quite melodic. We really enjoyed writing music specifically for The Sims game and look forward to doing more of that.

I've read that you're all currently living in separate cities. Do you guys still hang out when you're not touring, or is it now more of a professional partnership?

It's a bit of both. We see each other socially every now and again, but because we spend so much time together anyway, it's important to have a life outside that relationship too. I don't think we would have lasted as long or developed as much otherwise. It's good to bring new influences into the equation and also to feel refreshed when we do get together to work on music.

What were the last 5 records/artists on your collective iPod?

Caribou - Swim; Tame Impala - Innerspeaker; Squarepusher / Shobaleader One - d'Demonstrator; Bot'Ox - Babylon by Car; Jacques Dutronc- L'integrale.

How did you come around to working with Christina Aguilera last year (on her album Bionic to write the songs "Birds of Prey" and "Little Dreamer")?

She was a fan of our music and seemed very familiar, not just with the famous songs like "Playgirl" and "Destroy Everything You Touch", but with the whole albums. She wanted our kind of sound and luckily she just went straight to us as opposed to asking someone else to write and produce in our style, which has happened in the past.

Any more collaboration on the cards?

Hopefully. We look forward to writing and producing with other artists.

What's the plans for 2011?

Releasing 2 albums, more DJ gigs, more live shows.

Source

Ladytron - Seventeen (Live)

IGN interview (2002)

Ladytron is an analog lover's band. These guys and girls have more cool, obscure gear than Keith Emerson and Rick Wakeman combined. OK, maybe not, but I can guarantee you that Keith and Rick didn't pick their gear up cheap in the 80s like Ladytron's Daniel Hunt did.

I spoke with Daniel recently about how he and the rest of Ladytron (Reuben Wu, Helen Marnie, and Mira Aroyo) put together their retro-futurist pop songs.

Your music is sequenced in a rather simplistic way. Is that because you're using vintage sequencers?

Partially, but stuff ends up in Pro Tools or whatever. I often listen to electronic music and think things have been made over-complex. Mainly, that's probably because we're just learning how to use the equipment. We've never read a manual in our lives. The whole sound of the album 604 - the sequencing, the production, everything - is just us learning how to use the equipment. We didn't actually aim for any particular style.

What sequencers did you use?

It's just drum machines, and we sequenced some stuff in Cubase. We did a couple of basslines there, but the sequencing on a whole was drums. And we played the keyboard parts by hand. It adds that tiny bit of unpredictability to it and you're more likely to end up with a happy accident. Sequencing is useful when we're actually writing, for getting an idea down quickly. And obviously for stuff that can't be played by human beings.

What kind of drum machines do you use?

The main one I use is not very glamorous at all, it's the Yamaha RY-8. If anyone had one they'd be able to recognize the sound straight away.

I thought I heard a Roland TR-707 in there.

Yeah, I've used some samples of the 707 as well. We use quite a lot of sample kits. As a reliable workhorse, the RY-8 does it every time.

Have you played with the RY-30? It has filters and stuff in it, it's pretty weird.

I bought the RY-8 on a whim and found it's got a rap kit and stuff, it's great. I picked it up really cheap. "He Took Her to a Movie", that's got it all over it. I've also used 505 sample sets as well.

The Korg DDD-1 is cool too. You can get them for around $100. You can actually sample into it - it's got one second sampling - so you can do weird, percussion samples. Nobody wants the mid-80s digital stuff so it's super cheap.

I'll look out for one of those. I'm just starting on the second album now, so we're wondering where to look for some new gear. We've already got some new stuff but we're not going to use exactly the same sounds on the second album. I read an interview with Air where they said they didn't want to use any of the same sounds at all from Moon Safari and I don't really agree with that. You arrive at a sound you obviously like it; you make a record and people like it - I don't see the point in abandoning the whole thing.

What were some of the keyboards that you used on the record?

I'll reel them all off for you: Roland SH-09, that's my favorite, it's really tactile and fat; the Crumar Stratus Polysynth (I'm sitting amongst them right this second), the Crumar's quite useful and the organ sounds are nice as well; Korg Micro Preset, there's a really nice control called Traveler on it which is a bit like a filter.

I used to have a Mini Korg and it had that. All of the names for stuff were different, like decay is called Percussion.

Yeah. You can get nice white noise stuff with it. Moving on, I've got a Logan String Synth.

That's some weird stuff. Is a lot of it European? I know the Crumar's from Italy.

Yeah, I used to be really lucky here in Liverpool. There was a shop called the Keyboard Corporation about seven or eight years ago, and it closed down because I was the only customer. When it closed I inherited a few keyboards, like the Crumar. So I've got this Logan thing, it's got a really nice, ghostly sound and a really great orchestra sound. I play some riffs on "The Way That I Found You" that are very Joe Meek-like, "Telstar". I've got a Sequential Circuits Pro One, which I used with a MIDI to CV to play the bassline on "Discotraxx" and stuff like that, stuff with fast, sequence-based lines. It's really tight. I've got this Casio CT 630 and that sound is all over the album. I think it was the first MIDI Casio. We had them when I was at school in the mid-80s and I thought it was useless until I picked one up for like 20 pounds. It's got all these amazing stock sounds on it that, when the keyboard was made, were probably a bit long in the tooth. Every keyboard sound you'd need if you were making a record between 1976 and 1980 were there, which were obviously dated when I last used the keyboard. Really big, sweeping pads and great synth strings, organs, and harpsichords. In fact, the atmosphere in "He Took Her to a Movie" is completely done on that keyboard. I've got this old Korg organ sitting here and there's a couple toy keyboards as well.

Wow. So when you're doing a live show, you obviously don't bring all that gear with you.

No, me, Mira and Reuben have two keyboards each and Helen's got one. Obviously Helen and Mira are singing. We put the drums on a DAT because it's the safest way of doing it. We were toying with the idea of going with convention and having an actual drummer but everyone talked us out of it, because it would have diluted the whole essence of what we were.

It's much more Kraftwerk just to have four people playing keyboards.

Exactly. And if we brought a computer or a sequencer, it would just be something else to fail. I don't want to be shouting out to the audience, "Has anyone got a copy of Mac OS 9?" [laughs]

It's nice to hear that you play live because I've been to so many shows where, it's cool but it's a guy sitting behind a computer.

Our attitude was, we might as well not do it at all if we were going to do that. We've avoided playing in England - we played in London once but we were on a tour with Solex in February. We played in Europe when we were invited to get a free holiday but the live thing now is developing into a real thing now that the album is out. We wanted to wait until the album was released and there was a market for what we were doing and people wanted to see us.

Are you going to come to the US?

Yeah, we should be coming over in September.

Do you feel an affinity with other synth revival bands?

No, because we scream and run away when people start using the word "revival". It's like, we're using these instruments and influences to generate our version of modernity. We don't dress in the clothes or have the haircuts or wear the makeup. We've separated the elements of the sounds from the image and all of the baggage that went with it. People like Daft Punk, I feel affinity with them. I was really proud because someone said we were Daft Punk's more tuneful cousins. I probably feel more affinity with someone like Air than I do with, say, Zoot Woman [the new band from Les Rhythmes Digitales guy Jacques Lu Cont]. I feel like they're more of a stylistic snapshot of 1984 whereas we're slightly harder to categorize.

There's a few American electro groups like Le Car and Dopplereffekt that you remind me of. The big difference is you have vocals.

I spent some time over there at the end of last year, in LA, and the thing that was weird was, we seem to have all of these punk kids into us in San Diego. It's like, we're like this thing that punk's evolved into over there that doesn't really exist in England. That's quite strange. There's definitely punk in what we do, it's just not immediately apparent. I think that when people see us live they'll understand that we've got this subconscious desire to subvert everything we've created, in a way. We can't really help it, it just seems like the natural thing to do. We enjoy confounding people's expectations of us.

There's nothing more boring than going to see a band and have them recreate the album on stage.

Exactly, we play the songs in a different order. No, I'm only joking [laughs]. Live it's a lot edgier. There's a definite live sound - some of the songs do sound very different. There's obviously a balance, because if we messed with it all people would get on our case about it. "Zmeyka", we start with that normally. The harsher stuff tends to work better live so we gear the set in that direction.

Source

Unboxing of "Best of 00-10" deluxe version