I'm not a fan of remixes, but this reworking of Ladytron's classic single "Playgirl" is awesome!
13 February 2012
12 February 2012
Ladytron - Atlanta, GA, 2007
Content: High Rise / Evil / Soft Power / Sugar / International Dateline / Seventeen
11 February 2012
Ladytron trivia
Note: most trivia is based on various interviews with the band members.
They took their name from the song "Ladytron" by Roxy Music.
There are four kind of Ladytron songs: sung by Marnie (sometimes with Aroyo on backing vocals), sung by Aroyo (sometimes with Marnie on backing vocals and sometimes contain lyrics written in her native Bulgarian), duets (usually Marnie and Aroyo, but sometimes Marnie and Hunt) and instrumentals.
During the early years they were mislabeled as electroclash by some lazy journalists. Ladytron rejected the tag everytime they were asked about it. Electroclash was an electronic music subgenre, quite popular in early 2000s. Tags like electronic, electropop, synthpop, new wave, dream pop are more accurate to describe Ladytron' sound.
The legendary musician Brian Eno, once a member of Roxy Music, invited Ladytron in 2009 to perform at Sydney Opera House in Australia. He called Ladytron "the best of English pop music".
They used many synthesizers during the years, but the instrument that appeared on every album and live show is Korg MS-20.
Some similar artists to Ladytron: Depeche Mode, Kraftwerk, Chvrches, Röyksopp, Client, Metric, The Knife, Fever Ray, Goldfrapp, Grimes, Marsheaux, Soft Metals, Crystal Castles, VNV Nation, Covenant, Assemblage 23, mind.in.a.box, Mesh, Shiny Toy Guns, The Golden Filter, High Places, The Human League, Cut Copy, Miss Kittin, Miss Kittin & The Hacker, La Roux, Emmon, Camouflage, Parralox, OMD, Propaganda, Ashbury Heights, Pet Shop Boys, Wolfsheim, Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Artists that like Ladytron: Brian Eno, Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Alessandro Cortini (Nine Inch Nails, SONOIO), Andy McCluskey (Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark), Chibi, Falcore and Rainbow (The Birthday Massacre), Victoria Hesketh (Little Boots), Christina Aguilera, Chvrches, Tegan Quin and Sara Quin (Tegan and Sara), Emma Anderson (Lush), Sarah Blackwood (Dubstar, Client), Kate Holmes (Client, Technique), Marianthi Melitsi and Sophie Sarigiannidou (Marsheaux), Shirley Manson (Garbage), Brian Molko (Placebo), The Veronicas, Andy Bell (Erasure), Scott Hansen (Tycho).
For The Sims 3 game soundtrack, the group composed three exclusive tracks: "Rockfalls & Estuaries", "She Stepped Out of the Car" and "Young Etruscians". For the soundtrack of The Sims 3: Supernatural expansion pack, Ladytron composed another instrumental track, "Tesla".
Ladytron released 14 instrumental songs so far: "Olivetti Jerk", "Mu-Tron", "CSKA Sofia", "Zmeyka", "Laughing Cavailer", "USA vs. White Noise", "Turn It On", "CMYK", "Tender Talons", "Citadel", "Ritual", "Transparent Days", "Aces High", "Tesla".
Reuben Wu said about the process of making a new Ladytron album: "We start writing individually. We've never really lived in the same city before. We've always been geographically apart. [...] It's always been first as individuals, and then reviewing everything together, and then working on each other's songs. That's how we've always worked. And it goes well with how we make music. We do get together down the line and in the studio when we start fleshing out the tracks".
Mira Aroyo married with Harry Hardie in 2010, Helen Marnie married with Nic in 2011 and Daniel Hunt married with Adriana in 2011.
Reuben Wu considers Witching Hour as the definitive Ladytron record. Helen Marnie's favorite Ladytron albums are Witching Hour and Gravity the Seducer.
The band considered the title Fighting in Built Up Areas for the album Witching Hour when they worked on it.
"The Way That I Found You" emerged a week before they mixed 604. When Ladytron recorded that song, Helen sung it once and the band used that first take.
Daniel Hunt is a supporter of Liverpool FC. In 2005, he was a DJ for 30,000 Liverpool football fans in Istanbul before that UEFA Champions League final when Liverpool won.
Reuben Wu drew the original cover of the Ladytron's debut album 604.
Hunt and Wu set up the club night EVOL and have a share in bar/restaurant/music venue Korova, both from Liverpool.
Helen Marnie said in a Rolling Stone interview from 2011 that her height is 168 cm (5'6"). Regarding the supposed model career rumors, Helen said in the same interview: "I've never really done proper catwalk. I only ever did a few bits and pieces along with a couple of graduate shows as a favour to friends".
Helen Marnie has a small Japanese character tattoo on her belly and a red heart tattoo close to the wrist of her left hand.
When Ladytron perform live, Helen usually plays lead synth lines (when it's an instrumental part in the song), Mira plays sound effects and some synth lines (and some basslines), Reuben plays basslines, Daniel plays guitar and pad sounds, their tour drummer and bassist plays of course drums and bass, respectively.
Since the band started touring, they kept the same stage positions: in front-left Mira, in front-right Helen, in back-left Daniel, in back-middle the tour drummer, in back-right Reuben (and their tour bassist when they had one).
Ladytron used to wear uniforms onstage during 604 and Light & Magic tours.
There are two versions of the origin of the title of their debut album 604: first one is the area code for British Columbia and the second one is from the thriller The Andromeda Strain.
Some films that inspired Ladytron: The Andromeda Strain (1971), Watership Down (1978), Suspiria (1977), Phenomena (1985), Noir.
The thriller The Andromeda Strain was an inspiration for the 604 album title (after an error 601 that appears in the film) and their uniforms during 604 and Light & Magic eras. The animation Watership Down was an inspiration for "Ghosts" lyrics ("Prince with a Thousand Enemies") and its music video. Here you can read more about these films.
Ladytron rescored the original Tron movie for a live event in London in 2002.
"Seventeen" was written by Daniel Hunt.
Helen Marnie wrote the lyrics of "Beauty*2".
"Ninety Degrees" has been originally written by Daniel Hunt in Portuguese for his fiancé, and then translated it to English.
Daniel Hunt wrote "Destroy Everything You Touch" in October 2003. The song will be edited many times until it achieved the final version.
"The Beginning of the End" by Nine Inch Nails is a song remixed by Ladytron that featured Helen Marnie's vocals.
Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails is a fan of the band. In early 2007, he invited Ladytron to perform in the opening of the European shows of Nine Inch Nails.
During the early part of Witching Hour tour, the band used to name their four Korg MS-2000B synths to easily differentiate them: Cleopatra (Helen' synth), Babylon (Mira' synth), Ulysses (Daniel' synth) and Gloria (Reuben' synth).
604 was co-produced by Lance Thomas in Liverpool, Light & Magic was co-produced by Mickey Petralia in Liverpool and Los Angeles, Witching Hour was co-produced by Jim Abbiss on Elevator Studios (Liverpool), Velocifero was co-produced by Alessandro Cortini and Vicarious Bliss at Studio de la Grande Armée (Paris, France), Gravity the Seducer was co-produced by Simon "Barny" Barnicott and Alessandro Cortini in Kent, England.
Bands to open for Ladytron on their tours include Simian, The Presets, Client, CSS, Asobi Seksu, Mount Sims, Crocodiles, Franz Ferdinand, SONOIO, VHS or Beta and Geographer.
Ladytron have opened for other artists like Soulwax on their UK tour in 2001, Björk in 2003, Goldfrapp in 2006, Nine Inch Nails in early 2007 for their European tour. In 2009, Ladytron and The Faint co-headlined a North American tour.
Reuben wanted to remix the song "Ladytron" by Roxy Music but he lost the stems.[Source]
The album titles are usually hidden in the lyrics:
604 - "I'm With the Pilots" ("six-oh-four / Belgian teachers and the cosmonauts");
Light & Magic - "Light & Magic" ("Left on the lights, is there somebody home, light and magic");
Witching Hour - "Soft Power" ("Daylight is the enemy / Witching hour, soft power");
Velocifero - the only exception. But Reuben Wu said that they made a song "Velocifero" that was skipped from the album's final version. Probably that song included the word "velocifero" somewhere in the lyrics;
Gravity the Seducer - "Ninety Degrees" ("I don't know where you've been, out on the sand with medusa / and not busy with fighting gravity, the seducer").
The meanings of some song titles:
"Mu-Tron" - the name of Musitronics, often shortened to Mu-tron, that was a manufacturer of electronic musical effects active in the 1970s.
"CSKA Sofia" - a Bulgarian football club.
"Commodore Rock" - a reference to the 80s computer Commodore 64 or Hotel Commodore. However the actual lyrics are a weird mix between the Bulgarian national anthem, a children story and an old revolutionary song.
"Zmeyka" - means "snake" in Bulgarian.
"CMYK" - Cyan Magenta Yellow Black, a subtractive color model used in color printing.
"Soft Power" - a concept developed by Joseph Nye to describe the ability to attract and co-opt rather than coerce and rather than using force or money as a means of persuasion.
"Kletva" - which means "oath" is a cover of a song from a solo album by Kiril Marichkov of Bulgarian rock band Shturtzite.
"Deep Blue" - the supercomputer that beat the chess master Garry Kasparov in 1997.
"Ace of Hz" - it's a play on words between "ace of hearts" and "ace of hertz".
"White Elephant" - an idiom for a valuable but burdensome possession of which its owner cannot dispose and whose cost (particularly cost of upkeep) is out of proportion to its usefulness or worth. Also it's the nickname of the organ/synth combo Moog CDX-0652. There a picture with Helen playing this Moog.
Baltimore City Paper interview (2003)
Feels good / Looks good / Sounds good / Looks good / Feels good too / Feels good too (Uh-huh that's right)
With those lyrics from its almost 2-year-old but soon-to-be-domestically-released debut, #1, New York's flamboyant performance-art troupe Fischerspooner recorded what has become almost a mantra for electroclash, a movement with roots in New York but whose influence has been felt throughout the States and Europe. New York's most outfitted outfit has become one of the global figureheads in a widely thrown network whose electric catchall has tangled together the genuinely innovative, an orgy of fashionista mannequins, and a handful of acts who wondered if they were just getting fucked. What if being lumped in with a movement--two-thirds of which now makes no pretensions of being anything more than superficial--didn't feel good, too?
From press photos, Ladytron co-founder, songwriter, and keyboardist Reuben Wu appears to be a good-looking guy. Actually, all the members of the Liverpool-based electropop (stress on the "pop") act have a good look going for them. But fashion isn't a primary concern of Ladytron. If anything, Ladytron's members prefer not to be associated with 2002's most fashionable tag, electroclash. With an eye toward the haters that follow the hype, they shy away from a movement torn between establishing character or simply characters. Because if there is one thing Ladytron doesn't want to be, it's last year's model.
"The electroclash Web site often says things under band names like, 'Great music and model looks,'" says Wu by phone from the United Kingdom. "Who cares about being a model? It's about being in a band making music you want to make. That was irritating to us because we were lumped in as the electroclash counterpart in England, as if we'd contributed and were following that movement. Which is the opposite of what happened".
As so often happens, a style quickly began to threaten substance as more musicians clicked into cliques and jumped on bandwagons. Ladytron, in turn, distanced itself. Its members, which founded the group around the University of Liverpool, consider themselves to be following a Liverpudlian tradition of seclusion.
"When we wrote [Ladytron's 2001 debut full-length] 604, it was in relative isolation", Wu says. "I'm not saying no one anywhere was also doing what we were doing--there were a lot of artists producing with attitude, and we identify with Chicks on Speed, Miss Kittin and The Hacker, Tiga--but here there was nothing similar at the time. And we in no way were following, or at the time associated with, things happening in New York. We've always been as much into '60s pop as '80s. We've never been hard into Kraftwerk or Gary Numan or any of that. It really just is the instrumentation that bridges us with that era".
With no plans to jettison its oscillating analog synths, Ladytron used other means to avoid being too closely associated with current trends when recording its sophomore release, 2002's Light & Magic.
"We knew it was going to be quite a critical point in our path to come up with an album after [the rise of] electroclash", Wu says. "So during last spring and summer, when electroclash came up, we were producing in [Los Angeles] completely away from all of it. The songs were pretty much in various states of completion, but recording in the sunny context of L.A. gave us new perspectives [on them]".
"We had a hire car, and at first we'd drive around putting The Beach Boys on the radio", he continues. "But we realized that The Beach Boys weren't working for us, while playing Joy Division was. Which, in a way, was exactly what we were doing with our own music, taking these songs written in the north of England and taking them to where there's no such thing as a gray day, which allowed them to benefit from being put in, appropriately, a different light".
While Light & Magic isn't exactly warm, California glistens through the more densely layered sweeps and swing. Tracks such as "Cracked LCD" and "Turn It On" feel detached, but the songs featuring breathy vocalists Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo are imbued with more gauzy soft focus than frigid friction. The album holds more of the dynamic tension, the futuristic fascination and dread, that marked the cusp of '80s new wave but is now missing from much of what's called electroclash. Tracks thump ("True Mathematics"), bounce ("Seventeen", "Blue Jeans"), and squirm ("NuHorizons", "Cease2xist"). There is rigid motorik plod ("Fire") but also almost-house pulsing ("Flicking Your Switch").
The album is never dirgelike but has a cohesive duskiness. What it lacks are immediately apparent standout singles. "Light & Magic has more of a narrative, something that bridges it together if you listen in one go, even though every song on there is completely different", Wu says. "604 now feels more like a compilation".
With a more focused album under its belt, however, Ladytron is turning to compilations as a means to further flesh out its image. "We're putting out a compilation album on Emperor Norton in spring of records we like and DJ", Wu says. "Sort of a Ladytron Back to Mine, a look at what's on our decks. It's a mix of old and new stuff, like 'Horsepower' by CJ Bolland, 'Temporary Secretary' by Paul McCartney, 'Surrender' by Cheap Trick. When we first came out, people thought we were really into Human League and that was that. They saw the synthesizers and saw we didn't do much onstage but play, and people concluded we were just '80s revivalists. It's only now that people are thinking we're more than that. This compilation should be an important record for us and [should] give people a bit more of an understanding of what we're about".
Ladytron is also trying to augment its image with its live show. Having recently added a bass player and a drummer to achieve a harder-hitting set, the band members took kindly to comments that they sounded more brutal. "Too many bands stand with their laptop and have a vocalist talking into a microphone", Wu says. "Because it's electronic, people don't give a shit if it sounds like the record, but the point I've been trying to make all along is we're not just 'an electronic act.' We're a band".
And that's how Ladytron wants to be seen: as a singular entity, not just a piece of flotsam in the tide. "Acts came along, and people acted as if [they] could all be lumped in one speech bubble", Wu says. "Then people started producing music just for the speech bubble. The fashion got high profile in many magazines, but as the 'movement' received exposure the music got dumbed down to just needing a drum machine, some analog bass lines, and cold female vocals. And if you put some feathers in your hat, you could be electroclash. We'd rather make it fashionable again to concentrate on the music".
Source
With those lyrics from its almost 2-year-old but soon-to-be-domestically-released debut, #1, New York's flamboyant performance-art troupe Fischerspooner recorded what has become almost a mantra for electroclash, a movement with roots in New York but whose influence has been felt throughout the States and Europe. New York's most outfitted outfit has become one of the global figureheads in a widely thrown network whose electric catchall has tangled together the genuinely innovative, an orgy of fashionista mannequins, and a handful of acts who wondered if they were just getting fucked. What if being lumped in with a movement--two-thirds of which now makes no pretensions of being anything more than superficial--didn't feel good, too?From press photos, Ladytron co-founder, songwriter, and keyboardist Reuben Wu appears to be a good-looking guy. Actually, all the members of the Liverpool-based electropop (stress on the "pop") act have a good look going for them. But fashion isn't a primary concern of Ladytron. If anything, Ladytron's members prefer not to be associated with 2002's most fashionable tag, electroclash. With an eye toward the haters that follow the hype, they shy away from a movement torn between establishing character or simply characters. Because if there is one thing Ladytron doesn't want to be, it's last year's model.
"The electroclash Web site often says things under band names like, 'Great music and model looks,'" says Wu by phone from the United Kingdom. "Who cares about being a model? It's about being in a band making music you want to make. That was irritating to us because we were lumped in as the electroclash counterpart in England, as if we'd contributed and were following that movement. Which is the opposite of what happened".
As so often happens, a style quickly began to threaten substance as more musicians clicked into cliques and jumped on bandwagons. Ladytron, in turn, distanced itself. Its members, which founded the group around the University of Liverpool, consider themselves to be following a Liverpudlian tradition of seclusion.
"When we wrote [Ladytron's 2001 debut full-length] 604, it was in relative isolation", Wu says. "I'm not saying no one anywhere was also doing what we were doing--there were a lot of artists producing with attitude, and we identify with Chicks on Speed, Miss Kittin and The Hacker, Tiga--but here there was nothing similar at the time. And we in no way were following, or at the time associated with, things happening in New York. We've always been as much into '60s pop as '80s. We've never been hard into Kraftwerk or Gary Numan or any of that. It really just is the instrumentation that bridges us with that era".With no plans to jettison its oscillating analog synths, Ladytron used other means to avoid being too closely associated with current trends when recording its sophomore release, 2002's Light & Magic.
"We knew it was going to be quite a critical point in our path to come up with an album after [the rise of] electroclash", Wu says. "So during last spring and summer, when electroclash came up, we were producing in [Los Angeles] completely away from all of it. The songs were pretty much in various states of completion, but recording in the sunny context of L.A. gave us new perspectives [on them]".
"We had a hire car, and at first we'd drive around putting The Beach Boys on the radio", he continues. "But we realized that The Beach Boys weren't working for us, while playing Joy Division was. Which, in a way, was exactly what we were doing with our own music, taking these songs written in the north of England and taking them to where there's no such thing as a gray day, which allowed them to benefit from being put in, appropriately, a different light".
While Light & Magic isn't exactly warm, California glistens through the more densely layered sweeps and swing. Tracks such as "Cracked LCD" and "Turn It On" feel detached, but the songs featuring breathy vocalists Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo are imbued with more gauzy soft focus than frigid friction. The album holds more of the dynamic tension, the futuristic fascination and dread, that marked the cusp of '80s new wave but is now missing from much of what's called electroclash. Tracks thump ("True Mathematics"), bounce ("Seventeen", "Blue Jeans"), and squirm ("NuHorizons", "Cease2xist"). There is rigid motorik plod ("Fire") but also almost-house pulsing ("Flicking Your Switch").
The album is never dirgelike but has a cohesive duskiness. What it lacks are immediately apparent standout singles. "Light & Magic has more of a narrative, something that bridges it together if you listen in one go, even though every song on there is completely different", Wu says. "604 now feels more like a compilation".
With a more focused album under its belt, however, Ladytron is turning to compilations as a means to further flesh out its image. "We're putting out a compilation album on Emperor Norton in spring of records we like and DJ", Wu says. "Sort of a Ladytron Back to Mine, a look at what's on our decks. It's a mix of old and new stuff, like 'Horsepower' by CJ Bolland, 'Temporary Secretary' by Paul McCartney, 'Surrender' by Cheap Trick. When we first came out, people thought we were really into Human League and that was that. They saw the synthesizers and saw we didn't do much onstage but play, and people concluded we were just '80s revivalists. It's only now that people are thinking we're more than that. This compilation should be an important record for us and [should] give people a bit more of an understanding of what we're about".Ladytron is also trying to augment its image with its live show. Having recently added a bass player and a drummer to achieve a harder-hitting set, the band members took kindly to comments that they sounded more brutal. "Too many bands stand with their laptop and have a vocalist talking into a microphone", Wu says. "Because it's electronic, people don't give a shit if it sounds like the record, but the point I've been trying to make all along is we're not just 'an electronic act.' We're a band".
And that's how Ladytron wants to be seen: as a singular entity, not just a piece of flotsam in the tide. "Acts came along, and people acted as if [they] could all be lumped in one speech bubble", Wu says. "Then people started producing music just for the speech bubble. The fashion got high profile in many magazines, but as the 'movement' received exposure the music got dumbed down to just needing a drum machine, some analog bass lines, and cold female vocals. And if you put some feathers in your hat, you could be electroclash. We'd rather make it fashionable again to concentrate on the music".
Source
10 February 2012
Open Your Heart
The Human League cover released on the compilation Reproductions: Songs of The Human League in 2001.
03 February 2012
Video Vision interview (2002)
Krautrock, synthpop, electroclash, techno, new wave - the labels pasted on Ladytron neither replace nor augment the live experience:
Four subjects reciting stark lyrics in robotic voices while pressing soft hands against wailing human keyboards. The four original members, with a live drummer and bassist, master Bimbo's stage and hypnotize an audience starving for pop music without the bullshit. The energy derives from the music, the performers, and the audience feedback, showing San Francisco that Bimbos is not just a guitar kingdom.
Danny and Reuben stand behind the singers, still as tree trunks, to orchestrate their choral movement while locked into a state of dark musical bliss. Nothing can distract the two from fingers touching synthesizers, processors, and mixers. The smooth sounds reverberating from their keyboards supports the energy of their message.
I've heard the proclamation of an 80's resurgence in our present-day music culture, with Ladytron a leading group. But didn't Kraftwerk begin creating these sounds in the 70's? Hopefully Ladytron will continue driving in their musical cockpit expressing ideas of re-birth, a cycle that ignores image and style.
"There is nothing new anymore, only that which has been forgotten." --Pablo Ferro
Reuben and Mira set some time aside before the Bimbo's show to answer some questions about artistic expression, music videos, booty, champagne, and white fur coats.
(Rueben) I'm Rueben and I play keyboards. (Mira) I'm Mira, vocals & keyboards also.
(Reuben) I kind-of knew Danny in Liverpool, we're both from Liverpool... basically from seeing each other in the same clubs and shops in Liverpool. Later we met up with Helen, who was a music student at Liverpool University. And later we met up with Mira through a mutual friend.
(Video Vision) Is there a standard process in your creative process? Does one person write the lyrics and another write the music or is it all collaborative?
(Mira) With 604, our first record, that was primarily done by Danny because he handles the Freddy. With this one (Light & Magic) it's a lot more collaborative but there's no standard process. Every song comes out differently.
VV : Was the succes of 604, an unexpected surprise? Had you planned on continuing on with Ladytron after you made that album?
(Reuben) We didn't really know what to expect at all when we were making that album. At the time we all had full-time things that we were already doing.
(Video Vision) So it started more like a side project?
(Reuben) Well, not really, but... (Mira) It was more like taking things one at a time, and just seeing what happens. (Reuben) It was something that was just there. We never thought that it was, that we were, going to get to a certain place, it just happened. So in a way it was very surprising.
(Video Vision) Reuben, I've seen you do a DJ set here in SF at the Cat Club. It seemed influenced by Ladytron, but you also did other stuff with a different style than Ladytron. Do all four of you continue your own side projects?
(Reuben) We all DJ now, and we all play different music. So it's always interesting to hear what each of us (individually) have to play. And also to have a look at the difference between the first record and the second record and hear all of the new combined elements in there now.
(Video Vision) Do you see Ladytron as your main gig though?
(Mira, Reuben) Yeah, there's no time for anything else now. (Mira) We come off tour on Monday and we're in London for a four day break, but during that time we have to go to Paris, and after four days we start a new European tour. There's not enough time to do your laundry let alone start another band. (Reuben) We may as well just sit on the tour bus (for 4 days) and just wait for it to begin again.
(Reuben) Yeah! We're very lucky, it's a very good thing to do.
(Video Vision) Regarding artists and image, do you feel it's necessary to label music with a certain style or name? For instance, the music magazines are calling Ladytron "the next best group in electro synth pop". Do you think categorizing music is useful or just a marketing ploy towards the consumers?
(Mira) Well it's categorizing by the media or an industry for a marketing ploy, and definitely not categorizing by the band. There's no need to narrow yourself down in any way, and putting labels (on the band and music) really narrows you. Plus, we've always just done our own thing, and never been the "next thing" in anything. We don't know what we're going to do. (Reuben) Categorizing can helpful to the extent that it gives a new-comer pointers to new bands, labels and influences. But it gets taken a bit too far when people say "ALL THIS" equals one thing, and that's when it gets a bit frustrating.
(Video Vision) I read an interview which expressed surprise that Danny is interested in soccer... I suppose there was a surprise because it didn't fit in the image of the band.
(Mira) But that's some kind of image that people have imprinted on us. (Reuben) It is weird... it's stuff which is absorbed by the media which is reabsorbed into us and it becomes this never ending circle... (Mira) You have to face up to things which are said about you all the time and it's... (Reuben) We're always reading things which are written about us and it's... (Mira) It's funny. (Reuben) Yeah, it's funny.
(Video Vision) So there's no concern that you have to fit this certain image if you want to stay...
(Mira) No! Not at all. (Reuben) If anything, it makes it more exciting really. (Mira) And it makes us want to break that image a bit more, really.
(Video Vision) So about your music videos... With your video for "Seventeen", the director, David Chaudoir, was there a lot of collaboration between the band, and the director and the concept for the video?
(Mira) A little bit, but at first people approached us with different treatments. And one day we read about 20 of them, and most of them were absolutely abysmal - like really literal and they were really funny. It's a bit difficult reading treatments, I guess, and the one we chose is the one we didn't laugh at. So we decided to persevere with it and we met the guy and talked about it. It was the one that fit the song the best because it's not really in your face and it doesn't define and narrow the song down to anything. It kind-of leaves things open, which is the way we feel about the song as well. (Reuben) I think we're quite unwilling to write a brief and give it to everyone because they'll all come back with the same idea. And it's always nice to see other interpretations, because it's not just our interpretation which matters, it's the listener. (Mira) It's also important to us to not be over interpreted, and this video was not over interpreted (whereas others were). We kind of wanted a booty based video, but we didn't really get away with it. This one has a bit of it but... (Reuben) Yeah, we wanted champagne and white fur coats... (Mira) We wanted big guns and low rider cars but...
(Mira) We do everything for the day. And every time we play "Seventeen" or hear it, it becomes a different thing, because it's in a different situation. So it's not about nostalgia because every time you hear it you feel something different about it. So when we recorded "Seventeen", we were just having a laugh while we were doing it rather than thinking how it would look or feel later on.
(Video Vision) What do you think about music videos? Do you see them as a necessary promotional tool for bands trying to survive or even make it?
(Reuben) I don't think it's a necessary evil. It's going to be an even more important part of songs... music that can be bought by people. With all the issues regarding piracy, I think the record companies need to start thinking about putting more value into what people actually buy - what they take home, rather than just the music itself. (Mira) It's also really great because most musicians are really visual and it's great to be able to play around with it as well, so it's good fun for musicians.
(Video Vision) Given that there's only four lines in "Seventeen", was that a primary concept for the video, to reflect that sparseness?
(Mira) Yes, the sparseness of the video is very much linked to the sparseness of the song. But it kind of grows in a different way... like we came up with four lines which we thought were strong, so there was no point in putting other stuff around it.
(Video Vision) Your work with Interpol, and the remix of "Blue Jeans" - is that true that it's only going to be a UK release? How did that come about?
(Reuben) For now it's only for UK release, we're not sure about the US. We just hooked up with them somehow, befriended them. When we get some free time (haha) we're going to do the remix of their song. We're not sure which one, we'll see.
(Video Vision) Is there an instrument or kind of keyboard that you could call the base of the Ladytron sound?
(Reuben) I use an MS-10, because I tend to play more bass lines live. (Mira) I use the MS-20 all the time. Everyone uses something different.
(Video Vision) Do you tend to experiment more when you're in the studio or playing a live show? What's the major differences between playing live and studio sets?
(Reuben) I think we experiment quite a bit more when we're jamming on stage. Because after playing them so much, you get to know songs really well, so you start to explore and experimenting with them. And you end up thinking, "that could be a new song... "
(Mira) It's more like being into your own thing, and how you feel. And it depends what kind of sound you're getting from the stage; sometimes you'll hear new things from that place, or you can make a mistake and like it.
(Video Vision) Mira, you were studying genetics at Oxford? Are you still doing that?
(Mira) I was writing up, but it's kind-of taken a back seat. I haven't written anything for six or seven months. (Reuben) You shouldn't be saying that on TV? (Mira) My professor's too busy reading papers to watch television.
Source
01 February 2012
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