10 March 2019
99.3 County FM interview (2019)
Interview with Helen Marnie on 17 February 2019. Some highlights:
Helen said that her solo albums played a part in the delaying the sixth Ladytron album.
The interviewer asked if Bryan Ferry of Roxy Music had anything to say about the band's name. Helen replied that she doesn't know and added that she thinks that Daniel met Bryan Ferry and he definitely met his son.
The interviewer also wondered why Brian Eno didn't ask Ladytron to produce a track. Helen said that "well... we never know, maybe in the future". The interviewer then mentioned "at least remix something by Ladytron" and Helen said "it's something we should remedy".
Helen said that Mira has 2 kids now.
Get Some Magazine interview (2019)
Brenton Woodrow: How has your time apart influenced your most recent album?
Helen Marnie: A lot can happen in 7 years, and a lot has happened for us all. Some of us have moved continents, started families, began new work endeavors, and generally just dealt with the hand that has been dealt to us. All that can creep in and play a part in what you create.
BW: As your style has changed over the years what do you see as the defining elements of a Ladytron song?
HM: I think we're constantly trying to challenge ourselves musically, but we also know what is quintessentially Ladytron, and what makes us stand out from the crowd. That comes from the very recognizable vocals of myself and Mira, submerged in the warmth of synths.
BW: You've toured all over the world, what have been the most memorable tour moments or shows?
HM: I'm currently in Mexico City and we play our first show here in 8 years, so I'm really hoping it's going be amazing as the crowds have been so wild previously, but asides from what I'm looking forward to right now my favorite gigs from the past are probably Bogota, Columbia, and also having the opportunity to play the Sydney Opera House as part of Brian Eno's curated festival.
BW: Having done a few collaborations over the years with artists like Christina Aguilera and RM Hubbert, do you have a dream collaboration with any artist living or dead?
HM: There are loads of artists I'd love to collaborate with because I think that's when you produce your most interesting work. I recently hung out with Jake Shears and I reckon it'd be cool to make something with him. I'd also love to make a dance track with my friend Reggie Watts. He's an all-around super talent.
BW: The Harmonium Sessions were an interesting foray into an acoustic sound, has the band ever considered a fully acoustic album?
HM: I doubt that will happen because we're too concentrated on exploring our sound and developing what we can do with technology. It's nice to create things like the Harmonium Sessions, but that would be more of a sister record to the real deal.
BW: Why is this album your self titled album?
HM: For us, there really was no other option than to come back. It suggests a fresh, new start. It embodies everything that Ladytron is, wrapped up in an eponymous title.
BW: What emotions or experience do you hope the listener takes away from "Ladytron"? How is that different from previous albums?
HM: I think all we can ever hope for is that people come away after listening to the album and feel some sort of connection. For me that is key. I don't want to alienate people, I want them to read into my lyrics what they will, and really make them relevant to their own lives. So whether that is sadness, joy, anger, fear, or hope, it doesn't matter.
BW: What's the tour environment like off stage? Do you all hang out together and experience the cities you visit?
HM: We do try to fit in some downtime and experience the culture of the places we visit, but it's not always possible due to tight schedules. Also, jet lag can be a killer and sometimes scuppers plans. But, we do all hang out together, go for food, have some drinks, and generally just try to enjoy the time we have in a city.
BW: What was more fun, having music featured in the Sims or being in Yo Gabba Gabba?
HM: Both were pretty fun experiences. I remember writing the lyrics for The Sims, then having them sent back to me in Simlish and having to record the vocals. I loved not singing in my own tongue and having this secret language. Yo Gabba Gabba was a different kettle of fish because we were actually there in studio filming and being silly. Because it was a kids tv programme we felt like we could let loose a little, and I think you can see that in Reuben's spectacular synth antics.
BW: Do you listen to your own music? If so what format and venue do you prefer? MP3 + headphones? Car stereo and CD? Record player?
HM: I do actually. In fact, I've been listening to the Ladytron record for about a year normally in the car. It says a lot that I'm still not sick of it.
Thank you to Helen Marnie for this insightful Q&A.
Source
Helen Marnie: A lot can happen in 7 years, and a lot has happened for us all. Some of us have moved continents, started families, began new work endeavors, and generally just dealt with the hand that has been dealt to us. All that can creep in and play a part in what you create.
HM: I think we're constantly trying to challenge ourselves musically, but we also know what is quintessentially Ladytron, and what makes us stand out from the crowd. That comes from the very recognizable vocals of myself and Mira, submerged in the warmth of synths.
BW: You've toured all over the world, what have been the most memorable tour moments or shows?
HM: I'm currently in Mexico City and we play our first show here in 8 years, so I'm really hoping it's going be amazing as the crowds have been so wild previously, but asides from what I'm looking forward to right now my favorite gigs from the past are probably Bogota, Columbia, and also having the opportunity to play the Sydney Opera House as part of Brian Eno's curated festival.
BW: Having done a few collaborations over the years with artists like Christina Aguilera and RM Hubbert, do you have a dream collaboration with any artist living or dead?
HM: There are loads of artists I'd love to collaborate with because I think that's when you produce your most interesting work. I recently hung out with Jake Shears and I reckon it'd be cool to make something with him. I'd also love to make a dance track with my friend Reggie Watts. He's an all-around super talent.
BW: The Harmonium Sessions were an interesting foray into an acoustic sound, has the band ever considered a fully acoustic album?
HM: I doubt that will happen because we're too concentrated on exploring our sound and developing what we can do with technology. It's nice to create things like the Harmonium Sessions, but that would be more of a sister record to the real deal.
BW: Why is this album your self titled album?
HM: For us, there really was no other option than to come back. It suggests a fresh, new start. It embodies everything that Ladytron is, wrapped up in an eponymous title.
BW: What emotions or experience do you hope the listener takes away from "Ladytron"? How is that different from previous albums?
HM: I think all we can ever hope for is that people come away after listening to the album and feel some sort of connection. For me that is key. I don't want to alienate people, I want them to read into my lyrics what they will, and really make them relevant to their own lives. So whether that is sadness, joy, anger, fear, or hope, it doesn't matter.
HM: We do try to fit in some downtime and experience the culture of the places we visit, but it's not always possible due to tight schedules. Also, jet lag can be a killer and sometimes scuppers plans. But, we do all hang out together, go for food, have some drinks, and generally just try to enjoy the time we have in a city.
BW: What was more fun, having music featured in the Sims or being in Yo Gabba Gabba?
HM: Both were pretty fun experiences. I remember writing the lyrics for The Sims, then having them sent back to me in Simlish and having to record the vocals. I loved not singing in my own tongue and having this secret language. Yo Gabba Gabba was a different kettle of fish because we were actually there in studio filming and being silly. Because it was a kids tv programme we felt like we could let loose a little, and I think you can see that in Reuben's spectacular synth antics.
BW: Do you listen to your own music? If so what format and venue do you prefer? MP3 + headphones? Car stereo and CD? Record player?
HM: I do actually. In fact, I've been listening to the Ladytron record for about a year normally in the car. It says a lot that I'm still not sick of it.
Thank you to Helen Marnie for this insightful Q&A.
Source
08 March 2019
Billboard interview (2019)
Musicians are not machines, even if they use them, and by the end of 2011 and the Gravity the Seducer cycle, the members of Ladytron needed a break. Lead singer/synthesist Helen Marnie says that life in the group had been a constant since they banded together in 1999, and they needed to spread their wings. "If you don't have that spark, it will come across," notes Marnie of the creative process. "It was never like this thing that we would take a year or two years off. It was unspoken, but no one thought that it would take this long."
During their unexpected hiatus, three of the four members moved away from their London home base. Mira Aroyo remained there, while Marnie returned to her hometown of Glasgow, Daniel Hunt relocated to Sao Paolo, and Reuben Wu nested in Chicago. Hunt has since worked on movies scores and co-produced projects including the Blind Spot EP for Lush in 2016 and Marnie's first solo album Crystal World in 2013. Arroyo has been producing documentaries, while Wu has traveled and indulged in his photography.
Hunt encouraged Marnie to dive into her solo music because he felt she had the material, and both her crowdfunded debut and 2017's Strange Words and Weird Wars were well received. The latter, a dynamic, dark-leaning effort that was among the best releases of 2017, was produced by Jonny Scott, who co-wrote a couple of the tracks.
"That was a different kind of kettle of fish because there was no Ladytron connection," says Marnie of her sophomore effort. "I enjoyed that more because I feel like some people didn't give me the credit that I was due on the first album. Maybe they thought that Danny wrote all the songs and I just sung them, that I hadn't put the work in. But it was my album. This one was quite different from Crystal World.
"I absolutely loved doing it," Marnie says of her solo work. "But it was also very, very stressful because I didn't have any backing and didn't have a label."
But after two solo albums, Marnie – with new material in hand – was ready for Ladytron's return. "We'd not been together for a long time, and it just felt right," she says.
Like her second solo release, the new Ladytron album is dark. Lyrical themes of transition, feeling unsettled and apocalyptic angst run through the self-titled album. That wasn't pre-planned. "We've never discussed lyrics between us really, unless there's a track that hasn't had lyrics," says Marnie. "Then we've gone into the studio and completed them there, but that's very rare. We never discuss themes beforehand. It all seems to just come together and click. I feel it would be odd for us to discuss things like that with each other."
One such song was "Figurine," for which they had music in the studio but no lyrics. Hunt conjured three words that Marnie then spun other lyrics around. "I kind of panicked and the night before was up super late trying to work this song out," she recalls. "Then Danny and I did go over it the day that we were due to record it."
Given that the members don't discuss their lyrics before bringing them to the band, you might think it's challenging for Marnie to engage with the material. "Maybe that's why my delivery's quite detached," she says, laughing. "For me, it's more about interpreting the sound of the words. How you emphasize certain words is important to me. That's kind of my delivery. It's less about, this is a love song, it needs to feel this way. I'm more concerned with the shape of the words, how my voice and my tone fit in with that. I think tone is so important. There are some vocalists I just can't stand because it's almost like they try too hard. For me anyway."
Many people have used the word "icy" to describe Ladytron's sound, but there's a lot of warmth there, too. "I think the iciness idea comes from people's perception of synthesizers and that they are somehow cold," muses Marnie. "That's so far from the truth because you can create anything with a synth, you know? You can make it really deep and fuzzy. They can create warmth, but I think that there is some confusion and that's where that iciness idea comes from."
The wild card on this self-titled album is Cavalera Conspiracy/ex-Sepultura drummer Igor Cavalera, whom they brought into the mix for a few tracks. His style lent a different energy to Ladytron's music, which diverges from the ferocious thrash and death metal he's known for playing (though he's also become a DJ in recent years and remains steeped in the traditional music of his Brazilian heritage).
"We just let him have free reign, and he would play over the tracks and completely transform them," says Marnie. "It was amazing. If you listen to some of the tracks, you'll hear they suddenly kickoff and almost sound like a carnival. That's him. I don't think that we would have got that from someone else really. It was quite inspiring to watch him."
Hunt met Cavalera after moving to Brazil, the latter's homeland, and initially thought they might hang out a lot. "And then Igor moved to London, so it didn't quite happen as he had planned," remarks Marnie. "He was a drinking buddy, and they're friends. Danny asked him if he would consider coming in for a day or two, and he was really up for it. It was great."
Even though the '80s are an obvious reference point for Ladytron, the specter of '60s pop and baroque pop occasionally emerges on new tracks like "Until The Fire" and "The Animals," not to mention those lush, gorgeous vocal harmonies on "The Mountain." Marnie ascribes that vibe to Hunt. She says he grew up with '60s club nights in the Motown and northern soul vein. "I think he's perhaps quite influenced by that more so probably than the rest of us," she says. "That's probably where it snuck in."
Marnie, who enjoys '80s pop as well as genre-blending '90s acts like Air and Massive Attack, grew up with classical music and played piano until she went to university.
"I was good, but I wasn't good enough," the singer confesses. "I was never going to be a classical pianist. But I did put in a lot of work when I was younger. All your friends would be out playing and you'd have to come in and do one to two hours a night. When you start to do well and get better and the grades are getting higher, it's much more work. That's how I grew up from about the age of eight. I studied piano. I love classical music. I like opera, I like singers like Maria Callas, and [composers like] Puccini and Verdi. Maybe that does kind of creep into my music, but I would think it'd be more in motifs and little riffs and things that might appear in classical music."
Certainly, the lyrical themes on Ladytron could work on an operatic scale. While the band members like to keep the meaning of their colorful prose cryptic, the imagery on the new album is dark and ominous on tracks like "Horrorscope" and "Deadzone." And at least one track is personal. "['You've Changed'] is "inspired by someone that I know," says Marnie. "Or used to know."
The album's closing track, "Tomorrow Is Another Day," summons a hopeful air, but even then, one might interpret it as a portent of renewed strife. "I read a review yesterday, and it was saying just that, like not fulfilling your destiny," says Marnie. "Like you're just saying, oh well, I can always do it again tomorrow. But when I wrote it, it wasn't really like that. I guess it's just your perspective. It is hopeful, and that's why it's the last track on the album. I think you always need that bit of a lift to round up and just finish on something that is positive or has the potential to be positive. It's a sad song for me. It's pretty emotional."
The dystopian video for second single "The Island" is producing emotional responses from the band's fans, too. It depicts a humanoid woman escaping a laboratory and exploring the countryside… until she's hunted down by unidentified officials who set her ablaze with a flamethrower. While Marnie says director Bryan M. Ferguson's video was not consciously modeled after Stranger Things, it does somewhat mirror images of Eleven after she breaks free from Hawkins Laboratory.
"If you some of his past work, it's so twisted and colorful," describes Marnie. "It's dark but full of color. It's so weird. It's like obscure film festival material, and that's just what he's always done. The song 'The Island' has that kind of dystopian, messed-up feel, and it's quite claustrophobic. He just wanted to convey that really and how humanity is fucked basically. That pretty much comes across in the video."
The singer loves the "Island" clip but soon learned that not everybody else would. "I showed it to a few people before it came out and they were horrified," recalls Marnie. "I just think they didn't think it would end that way. I think they were hopeful that it was going to turn out okay. We were like, 'nope, this is going down.' I don't think some people could really handle that."
Six albums into their career, the U.K. quarter have proven their staying power, surviving the short-lived electroclash boom they were initially tied to.
"It felt weird because I didn't think that we sounded anything like our contemporaries," admits Marnie. "In interviews, we used to get a bit pissed off, but now it's fine because not many of them have survived at all or made decent albums since 2003 or whenever. But we just kept putting things out, and I think we proved people wrong. I just think it was a really lazy, lazy label anyway, but it did characterize a time when electronic music was coming to the fore. Obviously now it's everywhere, but that was probably the start of it all."
Given that Ladytron's music is sculpted in the studio and involves multiple layers of sounds and sometimes vocals, there will be those listeners who, when experiencing them live, will want to know what they are listening to. For the group, that is not the point. "There's a lot of super fans and that really bothers them — they need to know, how much is live and how much isn't," says Marnie. "But they'll never know. Take 'The Mountain' off this album. How are you going to recreate that with four people on stage without having backing? It's just not possible."
Even if Aroyo can harmonize with Marnie for that song, "you're still not going to get the full sound [without help]," says the singer. "The general listener or concertgoer doesn't care about that, but there will always be a handful that it bothers them if it does not seem to be completely live. But this is as live as we can get it without losing what is part of Ladytron."
And that unmistakable sonic identity is what's helped them stand out all along.
Source
Hunt encouraged Marnie to dive into her solo music because he felt she had the material, and both her crowdfunded debut and 2017's Strange Words and Weird Wars were well received. The latter, a dynamic, dark-leaning effort that was among the best releases of 2017, was produced by Jonny Scott, who co-wrote a couple of the tracks.
"That was a different kind of kettle of fish because there was no Ladytron connection," says Marnie of her sophomore effort. "I enjoyed that more because I feel like some people didn't give me the credit that I was due on the first album. Maybe they thought that Danny wrote all the songs and I just sung them, that I hadn't put the work in. But it was my album. This one was quite different from Crystal World.
"I absolutely loved doing it," Marnie says of her solo work. "But it was also very, very stressful because I didn't have any backing and didn't have a label."
But after two solo albums, Marnie – with new material in hand – was ready for Ladytron's return. "We'd not been together for a long time, and it just felt right," she says.
Like her second solo release, the new Ladytron album is dark. Lyrical themes of transition, feeling unsettled and apocalyptic angst run through the self-titled album. That wasn't pre-planned. "We've never discussed lyrics between us really, unless there's a track that hasn't had lyrics," says Marnie. "Then we've gone into the studio and completed them there, but that's very rare. We never discuss themes beforehand. It all seems to just come together and click. I feel it would be odd for us to discuss things like that with each other."
One such song was "Figurine," for which they had music in the studio but no lyrics. Hunt conjured three words that Marnie then spun other lyrics around. "I kind of panicked and the night before was up super late trying to work this song out," she recalls. "Then Danny and I did go over it the day that we were due to record it."
Given that the members don't discuss their lyrics before bringing them to the band, you might think it's challenging for Marnie to engage with the material. "Maybe that's why my delivery's quite detached," she says, laughing. "For me, it's more about interpreting the sound of the words. How you emphasize certain words is important to me. That's kind of my delivery. It's less about, this is a love song, it needs to feel this way. I'm more concerned with the shape of the words, how my voice and my tone fit in with that. I think tone is so important. There are some vocalists I just can't stand because it's almost like they try too hard. For me anyway."
The wild card on this self-titled album is Cavalera Conspiracy/ex-Sepultura drummer Igor Cavalera, whom they brought into the mix for a few tracks. His style lent a different energy to Ladytron's music, which diverges from the ferocious thrash and death metal he's known for playing (though he's also become a DJ in recent years and remains steeped in the traditional music of his Brazilian heritage).
"We just let him have free reign, and he would play over the tracks and completely transform them," says Marnie. "It was amazing. If you listen to some of the tracks, you'll hear they suddenly kickoff and almost sound like a carnival. That's him. I don't think that we would have got that from someone else really. It was quite inspiring to watch him."
Hunt met Cavalera after moving to Brazil, the latter's homeland, and initially thought they might hang out a lot. "And then Igor moved to London, so it didn't quite happen as he had planned," remarks Marnie. "He was a drinking buddy, and they're friends. Danny asked him if he would consider coming in for a day or two, and he was really up for it. It was great."
Even though the '80s are an obvious reference point for Ladytron, the specter of '60s pop and baroque pop occasionally emerges on new tracks like "Until The Fire" and "The Animals," not to mention those lush, gorgeous vocal harmonies on "The Mountain." Marnie ascribes that vibe to Hunt. She says he grew up with '60s club nights in the Motown and northern soul vein. "I think he's perhaps quite influenced by that more so probably than the rest of us," she says. "That's probably where it snuck in."
Marnie, who enjoys '80s pop as well as genre-blending '90s acts like Air and Massive Attack, grew up with classical music and played piano until she went to university.
"I was good, but I wasn't good enough," the singer confesses. "I was never going to be a classical pianist. But I did put in a lot of work when I was younger. All your friends would be out playing and you'd have to come in and do one to two hours a night. When you start to do well and get better and the grades are getting higher, it's much more work. That's how I grew up from about the age of eight. I studied piano. I love classical music. I like opera, I like singers like Maria Callas, and [composers like] Puccini and Verdi. Maybe that does kind of creep into my music, but I would think it'd be more in motifs and little riffs and things that might appear in classical music."
Certainly, the lyrical themes on Ladytron could work on an operatic scale. While the band members like to keep the meaning of their colorful prose cryptic, the imagery on the new album is dark and ominous on tracks like "Horrorscope" and "Deadzone." And at least one track is personal. "['You've Changed'] is "inspired by someone that I know," says Marnie. "Or used to know."
The album's closing track, "Tomorrow Is Another Day," summons a hopeful air, but even then, one might interpret it as a portent of renewed strife. "I read a review yesterday, and it was saying just that, like not fulfilling your destiny," says Marnie. "Like you're just saying, oh well, I can always do it again tomorrow. But when I wrote it, it wasn't really like that. I guess it's just your perspective. It is hopeful, and that's why it's the last track on the album. I think you always need that bit of a lift to round up and just finish on something that is positive or has the potential to be positive. It's a sad song for me. It's pretty emotional."
The dystopian video for second single "The Island" is producing emotional responses from the band's fans, too. It depicts a humanoid woman escaping a laboratory and exploring the countryside… until she's hunted down by unidentified officials who set her ablaze with a flamethrower. While Marnie says director Bryan M. Ferguson's video was not consciously modeled after Stranger Things, it does somewhat mirror images of Eleven after she breaks free from Hawkins Laboratory.
The singer loves the "Island" clip but soon learned that not everybody else would. "I showed it to a few people before it came out and they were horrified," recalls Marnie. "I just think they didn't think it would end that way. I think they were hopeful that it was going to turn out okay. We were like, 'nope, this is going down.' I don't think some people could really handle that."
Six albums into their career, the U.K. quarter have proven their staying power, surviving the short-lived electroclash boom they were initially tied to.
"It felt weird because I didn't think that we sounded anything like our contemporaries," admits Marnie. "In interviews, we used to get a bit pissed off, but now it's fine because not many of them have survived at all or made decent albums since 2003 or whenever. But we just kept putting things out, and I think we proved people wrong. I just think it was a really lazy, lazy label anyway, but it did characterize a time when electronic music was coming to the fore. Obviously now it's everywhere, but that was probably the start of it all."
Given that Ladytron's music is sculpted in the studio and involves multiple layers of sounds and sometimes vocals, there will be those listeners who, when experiencing them live, will want to know what they are listening to. For the group, that is not the point. "There's a lot of super fans and that really bothers them — they need to know, how much is live and how much isn't," says Marnie. "But they'll never know. Take 'The Mountain' off this album. How are you going to recreate that with four people on stage without having backing? It's just not possible."
Even if Aroyo can harmonize with Marnie for that song, "you're still not going to get the full sound [without help]," says the singer. "The general listener or concertgoer doesn't care about that, but there will always be a handful that it bothers them if it does not seem to be completely live. But this is as live as we can get it without losing what is part of Ladytron."
And that unmistakable sonic identity is what's helped them stand out all along.
Source
02 March 2019
25 February 2019
22 February 2019
Reviews of the self-titled Ladytron album
Metacritic (78/100)
A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed (positive)
Allmusic (4/5)
Brooklyn Vegan (positive)
BUST Magazine (5/5)
Chicago Tribune (3/4)
Cryptic Rock (4/5)
Drowned in Sound (7/10)
Get Some Magazine (4/5)
God Is in the TV (6/10)
Impatto Sonoro (positive)
Indie Rocks (9/10)
Je ne sais pop (6.8/10)
Knox News (4.5/5)
Loud and Quiet (6/10)
Mojo (4/5)
MusicOMH (4/5)
mxdwn (positive)
Mystic Sons (7/10)
News Beezer (positive)
Nialler9 (positive)
NPR (positive)
Pitchfork (7.7)
Punk Rock Theory (4/5)
Q Magazine (4/5)
Release Magazine (7/10)
Sound of Violence (3.5/5)
Soundblab (positive)
Stereoboard (3.5/5)
The Arts Desk (positive)
The Electricity Club (positive)
The Guardian, first review (4/5)
The Guardian, second review (3/5)
The Line of Best Fit (7.5/10)
The Skinny (6/10)
The Straits Times (4/5)
Uncut (7/10)
Under the Radar (6.5/10)
XS Noise (positive)
Vada Magazine (positive)
A Pessimist Is Never Disappointed (positive)
Allmusic (4/5)
Brooklyn Vegan (positive)
BUST Magazine (5/5)
Chicago Tribune (3/4)
Cryptic Rock (4/5)
Drowned in Sound (7/10)
Get Some Magazine (4/5)
God Is in the TV (6/10)
Impatto Sonoro (positive)
Indie Rocks (9/10)
Je ne sais pop (6.8/10)
Knox News (4.5/5)
Loud and Quiet (6/10)
Mojo (4/5)
MusicOMH (4/5)
mxdwn (positive)
Mystic Sons (7/10)
News Beezer (positive)
Nialler9 (positive)
NPR (positive)
Pitchfork (7.7)
Punk Rock Theory (4/5)
Q Magazine (4/5)
Release Magazine (7/10)
Sound of Violence (3.5/5)
Soundblab (positive)
Stereoboard (3.5/5)
The Arts Desk (positive)
The Electricity Club (positive)
The Guardian, first review (4/5)
The Guardian, second review (3/5)
The Line of Best Fit (7.5/10)
The Skinny (6/10)
The Straits Times (4/5)
Uncut (7/10)
Under the Radar (6.5/10)
XS Noise (positive)
Vada Magazine (positive)
20 February 2019
Lyrics update
I updated the lyrics of Ladytron and Marnie:
- I added the lyrics of all songs from their new self-titled album;
- I added the lyrics of Sweet Dreams;
- I fixed some mistakes in lyrics;
- I added the lyrics of all songs from their new self-titled album;
- I added the lyrics of Sweet Dreams;
- I fixed some mistakes in lyrics;
19 February 2019
The Skinny interview (2017)
Electric Dreamer: Marnie Interviewed
"The way Ladytron work and the way I work: it's very different. Of course, in my own music there are elements of what I contribute to Ladytron..." Helen Marnie stops for a moment, exasperated. "This is why it shocks me when I've done interviews in the past with journalists who are perhaps Ladytron fans and they tell me that some of the songs sound very much like Ladytron and I'm kinda like, well, shocked because I don't hear it at all. I know that I'm the softer, 'pop' edge of Ladytron and so when people compare me in that way, I find myself asking: 'Can you see past, or hear past, my voice?'"
Marnie is talking to The Skinny prior to the June release of her excellent second album Strange Words and Weird Wars. We stop off on the subject of the band in which she began her career; only for a moment. The question: how might her approach differ for two very different vehicles? "You have to be able to differentiate between Ladytron's music and what I'm producing, and see past the fact that it's my voice on top," she continues. "And I think that people can't see past that sometimes. I think that some of these songs would have made it onto a Ladytron album but would have been produced so differently. They're far too pop. They're not weird enough, maybe." She laughs. "Weird in a good way!"
Of course, if your palette is more readily informed by, say, indie guitar rock, you may well lazily offer that the new Marnie album sounds just like the first Ladytron album. When in fact it actually sounds little like the last Ladytron album (2011's lush and accessible Gravity the Seducer). Marnie's frustration with join-the-dots critiques is well placed. There is a depth of creativity and emerging personal vision within her second solo collection that should ensure unavoidable reference points remain just that, and don't simply become dreary comparators.
But even so, aside the bafflement (genuine confusion rather than real irritation), she offers with good grace ("I know that we have very, very loyal fans") an update on the band's activities. But that news, dear reader, in the spirit of the piece, is for another day. We will greet their return with the fanfares it will deserve, but for now Strange Words and Weird Wars is ample distraction and then some. We move on.
Our conversation had reached that point via discussion of the Marnie creative process. Her debut Crystal World was an expertly crafted exercise in sleek electro, assuredly mixing melody and mood. For every irresistible stomper (The Hunter), there was experimentation that caught the breath (the epic, seven-and-a-half-minute Submariner). But Strange Words and Weird Wars opts for a honing of the former and, bar the drifting lament A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, acts as a showcase for song craft artfully attuned to the dancefloor. Crucially, the record feels like a properly conceived whole.
"Well that's good to hear. I put out a single a year ago and people kept asking me if it was going to be included on this album. But that didn't make any sense to me because it wasn't a part of the writing process for this album. So it didn't have a place on this album. This album is definitely more coherent and a piece of music in itself. That's more true of this one than of Crystal World. I mean, I hadn't really anticipated that I would make that first solo album but when Ladytron took a break in 2011, I found myself thinking that, yeah, I could actually do it. So even though Crystal World does work as an album, this one had a clearer intent in that respect."
Now permanently residing in Glasgow, a new and developing methodology is at the heart of Marnie's writing and recording activity. "Yeah, I feel like since moving to Glasgow, I've met a good bunch of people," she explains. "It feels like a community here. Most people interact and know other musicians. I guess when I lived in London – and I was there for a long time – I really didn't have that. You live in your own pocket, to some degree, in London. So having moved up here, I met, through Iain Cook from CHVRCHES, Jonny Scott (drummer/producer). This was in about 2014 and it started off with him producing, and then we've moved into co-writing on occasion.
"Everything really starts here at home. I get the tracks to a basic demo stage: a basic song outline. I'll then send it to Jonny for him to polish up. That's generally how it works. With this album, though, we went into the studio and put a lot more work in. Lots of layering, just re-doing everything, really, so we got a better, fuller sound. Some songs are a little bit more worked up beforehand but that's pretty much the process."
As Marnie stresses throughout, the album's complex melodics are built upon a sharply cerebral lyrical foundation. This is none more apparent than on Lost Maps, a devastating and clear sighted report on the state of the nation(s). "Musically, I think it's quite stark and robotic. It was a co-write with Jonny, so he's responsible for the music bed. The lyrics were written round about the time when the Syrian child refugee was washed up on a Turkish beach [three-year-old Alan Kurdi and his family were attempting to reach Greece when their boat tragically sunk in the Mediterranean] and that was a shocking image that everyone around the world saw. The line 'survival's not a crime' came as a result of that. There's hope in the song, I think, but yes, as you say, it's a comment on the dark stuff that is all around us and that feeling of helplessness."
As with the best synth-pop, Strange Words and Weird Wars perfectly models Neil Tennant's 'tragi disco' concept. It's luxuriant and fulfilling: all heart, all art. "Well, I do want to create pop music but I don't want to create generic pop music. I think that a lot of pop music now is over-produced, to the point where you can't really distinguish between, oh I don't know, a Rihanna track and an Iggy Azalea track. It all sounds very much the same to me and it's probably because there are a handful of producers who are popular and they're the go-to for those kind of tracks. But, yeah, I did want to create a pop record but one with depth and with warmth, and I think that comes through with the instrumentation."
As we close, talk turns to touring. These songs would surely come alive onstage, at volume and with an audience locked in to their heady grooves. "Yes, I'm intending to," says Marnie. "I've only got a few things lined up at the minute in the UK but I would like to do more. I'd like to go over to the US and do gigs over there. I've been invited to play in Mexico and we're just finalising the dates for that. I want to go out and play. I feel really good about it all right now. I've spent the last two or three years working on this record, so I really want to do it justice. That's partly why I'm not rushing back into the Ladytron thing. I need to take that time because I've put so much time and effort and money into it, and that's why I want to see it done right. I've got these two bodies of work now – this is my stuff.
"The new music is great to play live. I've only done two gigs so far but it feels great and it's also great fun. That was partly the idea with this second album. I found myself thinking: do you know what? I feel a bit drained after Crystal World. Let's do something less draining, emotionally. Not that it's light, because lyrically it's not. But something more danceable, more beats-driven, was what I was looking for. And that's exactly what's happened."
Source
Marnie is talking to The Skinny prior to the June release of her excellent second album Strange Words and Weird Wars. We stop off on the subject of the band in which she began her career; only for a moment. The question: how might her approach differ for two very different vehicles? "You have to be able to differentiate between Ladytron's music and what I'm producing, and see past the fact that it's my voice on top," she continues. "And I think that people can't see past that sometimes. I think that some of these songs would have made it onto a Ladytron album but would have been produced so differently. They're far too pop. They're not weird enough, maybe." She laughs. "Weird in a good way!"
Of course, if your palette is more readily informed by, say, indie guitar rock, you may well lazily offer that the new Marnie album sounds just like the first Ladytron album. When in fact it actually sounds little like the last Ladytron album (2011's lush and accessible Gravity the Seducer). Marnie's frustration with join-the-dots critiques is well placed. There is a depth of creativity and emerging personal vision within her second solo collection that should ensure unavoidable reference points remain just that, and don't simply become dreary comparators.
But even so, aside the bafflement (genuine confusion rather than real irritation), she offers with good grace ("I know that we have very, very loyal fans") an update on the band's activities. But that news, dear reader, in the spirit of the piece, is for another day. We will greet their return with the fanfares it will deserve, but for now Strange Words and Weird Wars is ample distraction and then some. We move on.
"Well that's good to hear. I put out a single a year ago and people kept asking me if it was going to be included on this album. But that didn't make any sense to me because it wasn't a part of the writing process for this album. So it didn't have a place on this album. This album is definitely more coherent and a piece of music in itself. That's more true of this one than of Crystal World. I mean, I hadn't really anticipated that I would make that first solo album but when Ladytron took a break in 2011, I found myself thinking that, yeah, I could actually do it. So even though Crystal World does work as an album, this one had a clearer intent in that respect."
Now permanently residing in Glasgow, a new and developing methodology is at the heart of Marnie's writing and recording activity. "Yeah, I feel like since moving to Glasgow, I've met a good bunch of people," she explains. "It feels like a community here. Most people interact and know other musicians. I guess when I lived in London – and I was there for a long time – I really didn't have that. You live in your own pocket, to some degree, in London. So having moved up here, I met, through Iain Cook from CHVRCHES, Jonny Scott (drummer/producer). This was in about 2014 and it started off with him producing, and then we've moved into co-writing on occasion.
"Everything really starts here at home. I get the tracks to a basic demo stage: a basic song outline. I'll then send it to Jonny for him to polish up. That's generally how it works. With this album, though, we went into the studio and put a lot more work in. Lots of layering, just re-doing everything, really, so we got a better, fuller sound. Some songs are a little bit more worked up beforehand but that's pretty much the process."
As Marnie stresses throughout, the album's complex melodics are built upon a sharply cerebral lyrical foundation. This is none more apparent than on Lost Maps, a devastating and clear sighted report on the state of the nation(s). "Musically, I think it's quite stark and robotic. It was a co-write with Jonny, so he's responsible for the music bed. The lyrics were written round about the time when the Syrian child refugee was washed up on a Turkish beach [three-year-old Alan Kurdi and his family were attempting to reach Greece when their boat tragically sunk in the Mediterranean] and that was a shocking image that everyone around the world saw. The line 'survival's not a crime' came as a result of that. There's hope in the song, I think, but yes, as you say, it's a comment on the dark stuff that is all around us and that feeling of helplessness."
As we close, talk turns to touring. These songs would surely come alive onstage, at volume and with an audience locked in to their heady grooves. "Yes, I'm intending to," says Marnie. "I've only got a few things lined up at the minute in the UK but I would like to do more. I'd like to go over to the US and do gigs over there. I've been invited to play in Mexico and we're just finalising the dates for that. I want to go out and play. I feel really good about it all right now. I've spent the last two or three years working on this record, so I really want to do it justice. That's partly why I'm not rushing back into the Ladytron thing. I need to take that time because I've put so much time and effort and money into it, and that's why I want to see it done right. I've got these two bodies of work now – this is my stuff.
"The new music is great to play live. I've only done two gigs so far but it feels great and it's also great fun. That was partly the idea with this second album. I found myself thinking: do you know what? I feel a bit drained after Crystal World. Let's do something less draining, emotionally. Not that it's light, because lyrically it's not. But something more danceable, more beats-driven, was what I was looking for. And that's exactly what's happened."
Source
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