Format: FLV, 480x360
Size: 156 MB
Source: internet stream
Content:
1. Tomorrow
2. Destroy Everything You Touch
3. Soft Power
4. Interview
5. Black Cat
6. Discotraxx
7. Versus
8. Runaway
9. Credits
Download
28 December 2012
Ladytron - KCRW, 2009
Format: FLV, 480x360
Size: 156 MB
Source: internet stream
Content:
1. Tomorrow
2. Destroy Everything You Touch
3. Soft Power
4. Interview
5. Black Cat
6. Discotraxx
7. Versus
8. Runaway
9. Credits
Download
23 December 2012
Chicago Sun-Times interview (2003)
The group recently followed its promising 2001 album 604 with an even stronger disc, Light & Magic. Now it's touring the States for the first time, with the core members of keyboardists, vocalists and DJs Daniel Hunt, Reuben Wu, Mira Aroyo and Helen Marnie augmented by a bassist and a drummer. I spoke with Marnie by phone from the United Kingdom before the start of the tour, which brings them to Metro tonight.
There hasn't been a whole lot written about Ladytron in the States. Take me through how you came together.
Daniel and Reuben kind of knew each other from Liverpool from DJ-ing around, and they had gone to university there. They wanted to do something together and have a band, but they didn't really know what it was going to be like or what shape it would take. Danny met Mira at a club they were DJ-ing at, and they met me very shortly thereafter through mutual friends. I was kind of into the same sort of music, and I was DJ-ing, but I used to live in Oxford. We met up and got along straight away, and I think that was the main thing. We enjoyed what we were doing and we very much took it one step at a time. We'd do a song and try and release it. This was about four years ago, and the first album came out two years ago. We'd been releasing singles for a long time before that.
As strong as 604 was, it seems as if the group took a quantum leap with Light & Magic.
The first one was more of a collection of songs, and some of them had existed for a long time. This one sounds like more of a record because it was done in a much shorter time and it was done to be a record, whereas the first one we were just doing song by song. With this one, we had more of an idea of what we wanted to do, and also, because we got to know each other better over time, all of our personalities come through more. It just seems to work better.
To be quite honest with you, we're not fascinated by that era very much. We're fascinated by the '60s much more than we are by that era. The whole aesthetic thing is more like late '60s/early '70s, a lot more so than '80s. I think people identify with the '80s because of the synths. They came out in the late '70s or early '80s, and out of those came the New Wave things you're talking about. I love Cabaret Voltaire and stuff like that, but I'm not actually in love with Gary Numan. I like Kraftwerk, but they were a really weird band that was making really, really good pop tunes. Basically, we use old synths because we like the sounds that they make.
The sound is marked by your use of vintage analog synthesizers. Is it difficult traveling with those instruments and converting the currency?
It's really difficult traveling, because the synths tend to break down quite a lot. We did a two-week tour of England at the end of last year, and I think we had about three of them dying in the space of two days. They can be fixed, but it's just a bit worrying when you know you're relying on something that's 30 years old and you haven't got another and it's really difficult to find another one of that type. But it's also really difficult when you play because we're not relying on amplifiers, so everything is DI-ed [direct-injected into the sound system], and it's a really complex thing to get it like the records sound live because everything goes through the P.A. There's a lot of technical [crap] like that.
You could use modern samplers to replicate those sounds.
Of course we can sample them, but it just doesn't really feel proper. And also when you sample sounds, you're relying on what you've sampled, but when we do stuff live, we're playing around with filters and stuff like that, and you can't do that when you're using samples. It's more organic our way. We bought this mini-Korg thing, which looks like an old vintage instrument and we thought, "OK, we're gonna sample all this stuff down on to it so in case something happens we have it", but it's just not the same thing. If you have a late-'60s Les Paul, you wouldn't be happy with like a [cheap] Encore [guitar], you know what I mean?
Synth pioneer Brian Eno always talked about the beauty of the early analog machines and their ability to surprise you with the turn of every knob.
So there are some headaches.
Yeah, there are a lot of headaches! After the show, we're always going over what went wrong, but hopefully we can cure the headaches.
I remember having a similar discussion with Tim Gane and Laetitia Sadier of Stereolab a decade ago. Do you feel kindred spirit with that band?
We've got the same [roadies], the backline people. [Laughs] But yeah, definitely. They kind of approached pop songs in a way we liked. But otherwise, beyond that, they use quite a different format. I think we're maybe a bit simpler in our approach to electronics than they are. I think they're more avant-garde and we're more common and not as clever.
For Ladytron, it seems to be about the song rather than the sound in the end.
Yeah, for us it's all about the song. I really liked Stereolab when they were all about the song and not trying to be so clever. And we're all about rocking a bit more as well. I think that kind of comes across more live when we're thrashing about.
When you live with the melody in your head before you've actually written it or gotten to record it. And other times, I used to get this when I used to smoke--if I needed a cigarette after a song, I knew I liked it.
Like after sex!
[Laughs] Yeah. But now that I'm not smoking, it's kind of really frustrating. But you just know it, I guess. I like all the songs that we've done, but obviously some of them work more as pop hits than others. But you don't think of whether it's going to work or not; you get an idea and you put it down, and if you like it, then you go with it and hopefully it works for other people as well.
Source
22 December 2012
New Ladytron album in 2013!
Amazing news! Ladytron announced on their Facebook page that they will release a new album in 2013! (17 January 2015 edit: still not released)
12 December 2012
Helen Marnie' solo album (7)
Marnie returned in Iceland to finish her solo album. Hopefully we'll hear a preview or a single at the beginning of the new year.
For those that now hear for the first time about Helen Marnie's debut album, here are some details:
- the album is produced by Daniel Hunt;
- Helen described it as "an electronic album with more of a pop element and pristine vocals. Lyrically, the album is expansive, but the Elements do play a part in much of the record, with the sea being particularly dominant and reoccurring";
- she already recorded most part of her album;
- Marnie run a PledgeMusic campaign to help funding the album. She already reached the target but you can still pledge here;
- the album is due early next year.
For those that now hear for the first time about Helen Marnie's debut album, here are some details:
- the album is produced by Daniel Hunt;
- Helen described it as "an electronic album with more of a pop element and pristine vocals. Lyrically, the album is expansive, but the Elements do play a part in much of the record, with the sea being particularly dominant and reoccurring";
- she already recorded most part of her album;
- Marnie run a PledgeMusic campaign to help funding the album. She already reached the target but you can still pledge here;
- the album is due early next year.
07 December 2012
01 December 2012
Lyrics updated
Todor Terziev (a Bulgarian friend of mine), translated and corrected the existing translations of all Ladytron songs that contain Bulgarian lyrics.
Read the lyrics here.
Read the lyrics here.
24 November 2012
Under the Radar interview (2008)
Mythical Beasts and Masterful Beats
"We're just going to go out and get drunk now", says Ladytron's Daniel Hunt, having recently approved the final master of the band's fourth record. "We've been organizing these album-wrap drinking sessions for about two weeks, and even though we hadn't finished the record, we just kept having them anyway. But this one's going to be definitive".
Ladytron have good reason to celebrate. When the Liverpool quartet emerged in 1999, their suits, synths, melodies, and Teutonic trappings clearly evoked techno pioneers Kraftwerk, leading many critics to deem them a nostalgic novelty act. Then came electroclash, a short-lived, New York-based fad that produced a flurry of like-minded bands, many of questionable quality. Ladytron and other such European acts were reluctantly lumped into this category, but Hunt and his bandmates Mira Aroyo, Helen Marnie, and Reuben Wu were able to weather the subsequent electroclash backlash by disproving their detractors; the band has consistently perfected their live shows and their studio productions.
The latest proof of their superior sonic prowess is Velocifero. The album shares its name with an obscure 19th century opera as well as an Italian scooter hyped for its flair, style, and simultaneously futuristic and classic qualities—all apt descriptors for any Ladytron endeavor. But regardless of its history, the name emerged from somewhere deep within the band's subconscious, initially as the title of a song that was cut from the record.
"The biggest shame about dropping that track was the name", says Aroyo. "It seemed to have a kind of urgency that we thought was relevant to the record. One of the guys who did our album cover thought that it sounded like a dinosaur. Or maybe some mythical beast".
Whatever its totem animal may be, Velocifero certainly has sharp teeth and a vicelike grip. With its assertive synths and rhythmic punch, Ladytron have moved away from the shoegazer echoes that resonated across their 2005 album, Witching Hour, producing a cleaner sound. While Hunt and Wu concentrate solely on their array of keyboards and consoles (save for a little gong action, courtesy of Wu), the ladies in the band continue to do double duty, playing synths and dividing vocal duties. Aroyo delivers her trademark bilingual deadpan (in English and Bulgarian), and Marnie provides her equally powerful yet relatively girlish counterpoint. But while the vocals and melodies have held steady, the rest of the album's sonic atmosphere appears to be in flux.
"It might be more of a departure than we actually realize at the moment", says Hunt. "It feels like a combination of the lessons we learned on the last two albums".
"On Witching Hour, we found a sound that we were happy with for the first time, but as a whole, it wasn't very diverse", adds Aroyo. "We hit on a formula of how to incorporate live drums and bass and guitars, and that's definitely still there—it gave us a lot of confidence and made us push ourselves a bit further. But with this one, we've tightened up some of the rhythmic elements and played with a wider variety of synth sounds, rather than relying on effects, reverb, and lots of washed-out guitars".
Recorded at the Studio de la Grande Armée in Paris, Velocifero was largely self-produced, with assistance from Andy Gardiner (aka Vicarious Bliss) of France's influential Ed Banger label, who had already remixed Ladytron's "Soft Power", from Witching Hour. Though Ladytron give their seal of approval to Ed Banger and the recent wave of hot French electro and hip-hop (Justice, Medhi, TTC, etc.), they're careful not to affiliate themselves with that scene, memories of electroclash still in the backs of their minds.
"We've never really cared about or been part of any trendy movements or felt competitive with other bands", says Aroyo. "We've got our way of working and we push ourselves within that space".
Hunt feels that the most significant outside contribution to the record came in the mix, by Los Angeles engineer Michael Patterson, whose credits include Beck's Midnite Vultures and several P. Diddy discs. But what really steered the band in a different direction was their own creative drive, not only to explore new sonic terrain, but to sidestep repetition.
"The worst situation to be in, if you're in a band, is to feel like you have to make the same record again and again", says Hunt. "That's gotta be soul-destroying".
"We have to amuse ourselves and reinvent ourselves, otherwise it's hard to keep this up over eight years", adds Aroyo. "But when you've been around for four albums, you also have the confidence and the freedom to change, so it becomes easier".
Ladytron's business matters have never failed to keep the band on their toes, with the constant folding of labels and forging of new deals on both sides of the Atlantic. In North America, Witching Hour was released by Ryko, which had bought out their previous label, Emperor Norton, but Velocifero has been picked up by the eager team at Nettwerk.
Having solid support in North America is of particular importance to Ladytron, because despite their distinctly European sound, they're one in a long line of bands whose fanbase is larger and more loyal here than on their home turf.
"The thing that really helps weirder bands like us is college radio", says Aroyo. "That's something that doesn't exist [in the U.K.]. Playlists on national radio are incredibly rigid, and very much orientated towards guitar rock bands with an NME story and lots of gossip behind them, or pre-fab pop, or hip-hop and R&B. [American] college radio is a lot more open-minded".
It also helps that Ladytron tend to tour the U.S. to death, filling up their aftershow time and days off with DJ gigs that allow them to meet even more fans than they would otherwise. With 31 dates set for North America alone to promote the June release of Velocifero, Ladytron have a lot on their plate this year. Clearly, the appeal of playing live hasn't worn off.
"I've enjoyed the last couple of tours a lot more", says Aroyo. "When we started, we thought we'd just make records. We had jobs, we had other things to do, so touring was really far down on our priorities list. Little by little, we realized that we needed to get good live. When we got good live, it really helped us to develop sonically, and touring became a lot more fun. A lot of people who come to shows don't really understand the kind of band we are until they see us live, and then things kind of click into place".
Source
"We're just going to go out and get drunk now", says Ladytron's Daniel Hunt, having recently approved the final master of the band's fourth record. "We've been organizing these album-wrap drinking sessions for about two weeks, and even though we hadn't finished the record, we just kept having them anyway. But this one's going to be definitive".
Ladytron have good reason to celebrate. When the Liverpool quartet emerged in 1999, their suits, synths, melodies, and Teutonic trappings clearly evoked techno pioneers Kraftwerk, leading many critics to deem them a nostalgic novelty act. Then came electroclash, a short-lived, New York-based fad that produced a flurry of like-minded bands, many of questionable quality. Ladytron and other such European acts were reluctantly lumped into this category, but Hunt and his bandmates Mira Aroyo, Helen Marnie, and Reuben Wu were able to weather the subsequent electroclash backlash by disproving their detractors; the band has consistently perfected their live shows and their studio productions.
"The biggest shame about dropping that track was the name", says Aroyo. "It seemed to have a kind of urgency that we thought was relevant to the record. One of the guys who did our album cover thought that it sounded like a dinosaur. Or maybe some mythical beast".
Whatever its totem animal may be, Velocifero certainly has sharp teeth and a vicelike grip. With its assertive synths and rhythmic punch, Ladytron have moved away from the shoegazer echoes that resonated across their 2005 album, Witching Hour, producing a cleaner sound. While Hunt and Wu concentrate solely on their array of keyboards and consoles (save for a little gong action, courtesy of Wu), the ladies in the band continue to do double duty, playing synths and dividing vocal duties. Aroyo delivers her trademark bilingual deadpan (in English and Bulgarian), and Marnie provides her equally powerful yet relatively girlish counterpoint. But while the vocals and melodies have held steady, the rest of the album's sonic atmosphere appears to be in flux.
"It might be more of a departure than we actually realize at the moment", says Hunt. "It feels like a combination of the lessons we learned on the last two albums".
"On Witching Hour, we found a sound that we were happy with for the first time, but as a whole, it wasn't very diverse", adds Aroyo. "We hit on a formula of how to incorporate live drums and bass and guitars, and that's definitely still there—it gave us a lot of confidence and made us push ourselves a bit further. But with this one, we've tightened up some of the rhythmic elements and played with a wider variety of synth sounds, rather than relying on effects, reverb, and lots of washed-out guitars".
Recorded at the Studio de la Grande Armée in Paris, Velocifero was largely self-produced, with assistance from Andy Gardiner (aka Vicarious Bliss) of France's influential Ed Banger label, who had already remixed Ladytron's "Soft Power", from Witching Hour. Though Ladytron give their seal of approval to Ed Banger and the recent wave of hot French electro and hip-hop (Justice, Medhi, TTC, etc.), they're careful not to affiliate themselves with that scene, memories of electroclash still in the backs of their minds.
"We've never really cared about or been part of any trendy movements or felt competitive with other bands", says Aroyo. "We've got our way of working and we push ourselves within that space".
Hunt feels that the most significant outside contribution to the record came in the mix, by Los Angeles engineer Michael Patterson, whose credits include Beck's Midnite Vultures and several P. Diddy discs. But what really steered the band in a different direction was their own creative drive, not only to explore new sonic terrain, but to sidestep repetition.
"The worst situation to be in, if you're in a band, is to feel like you have to make the same record again and again", says Hunt. "That's gotta be soul-destroying".
"We have to amuse ourselves and reinvent ourselves, otherwise it's hard to keep this up over eight years", adds Aroyo. "But when you've been around for four albums, you also have the confidence and the freedom to change, so it becomes easier".
Ladytron's business matters have never failed to keep the band on their toes, with the constant folding of labels and forging of new deals on both sides of the Atlantic. In North America, Witching Hour was released by Ryko, which had bought out their previous label, Emperor Norton, but Velocifero has been picked up by the eager team at Nettwerk.
"The thing that really helps weirder bands like us is college radio", says Aroyo. "That's something that doesn't exist [in the U.K.]. Playlists on national radio are incredibly rigid, and very much orientated towards guitar rock bands with an NME story and lots of gossip behind them, or pre-fab pop, or hip-hop and R&B. [American] college radio is a lot more open-minded".
It also helps that Ladytron tend to tour the U.S. to death, filling up their aftershow time and days off with DJ gigs that allow them to meet even more fans than they would otherwise. With 31 dates set for North America alone to promote the June release of Velocifero, Ladytron have a lot on their plate this year. Clearly, the appeal of playing live hasn't worn off.
"I've enjoyed the last couple of tours a lot more", says Aroyo. "When we started, we thought we'd just make records. We had jobs, we had other things to do, so touring was really far down on our priorities list. Little by little, we realized that we needed to get good live. When we got good live, it really helped us to develop sonically, and touring became a lot more fun. A lot of people who come to shows don't really understand the kind of band we are until they see us live, and then things kind of click into place".
Source
19 November 2012
Helen Marnie' solo album (6)
Helen Marnie will release a limited edition 7" vinyl courtesy of Soft Power Records in Scotland. It's limited to 200, signed, with music from the new album. Go here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)