Showing posts with label Ladytron. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ladytron. Show all posts

Friday, June 1, 2018

ACE TRACKS: May 2018

It's been a strange feeling, this past month of writing. More relaxed, not as much pressure to keep pressing on to an end goal. Like, there still is an end goal, in that there has to come a point where my infinity project comes to fruition (receiving another twenty albums in the mail this past week alone sure makes it difficult tho'). Yet if I'm not feeling the free-flow of creative juice, I'm perfectly fine taking a step back for a day, regather my thoughts, come at better, stronger, though not necessarily harder or faster. There's no denying a few efforts from the past five years could have been better if I'd given them a little more care.

Of course, another thing is this past month's been a rather distracting affair, all 'round. So many movies (damn you, Marvel!), so many sicknesses (had to take two sick days – I seldom even take one per year!), plus that looming, work-related uncertainty that just won't be settled anytime soon. Okay, within the month for sure, then I'll finally know just how gainfully employed I'll still be. If not though... well, I guess I'll have more time to write. Plus there's that Patreon thing too. Can't forget to plug that every chance I get – the service tells me it's in my best interest to do so, no matter how much of a whore you end up feeling.

On those cheering thoughts, here's the ACE TRACKS for the Month Of May, of the year Twenty-Eighteen!


Full track list here.

MISSING ALBUMS:
Various - 10 Years Of Drum&BassArena: Mixed By Andy C & Grooverider
Wu-Tang Clan - 8 Diagrams
Gravediggaz - 6 Feet Deep
Euphoria - 2 Days Away

Percentage Of Hip-Hop: 25%
Percentage Of Rock: 6%
Most “WTF?” Track: Anything Gravediggaz ...but in a good way!

So strange that 8 Diagrams isn't on Spotify. Like, I get that the album was released on a short-lived label, and it's current status is probably still in legal limbo, but surely RZA would have found a new home for it a decade after the fact. AND Gravediggaz too, for that matter. Is Gee Street just being tight in its licensing with that one?

So I did something I haven't done in a long time with these playlists: sequence the tracks into a proper mixtape or set. I do this not because of nostalgia or a need for creative outbursts, but because my old alphabetical stand-by resulted in an incredibly wack order of tunes. Seriously, it was just... painful, the transitions I was hearing, over and over and over. I've had some 'eclectic' playlists in the past, but man, nothing like what this was turning out as. You just can't go from Global Communication to Canibus to Ladytron. You just can't. Hopefully this arrangement makes listening through this more tolerable. Well, for me, anyway.

Sunday, May 20, 2018

Ladytron - 604

Emperor Norton: 2001/2004

Phase 1 Ladytron had such a college-kid cool about them. You could easily imagine them hanging out at the A/V rec room in their matching Atari sports jackets, fiddling with archaic analog synths for fun. Or catch them chilling at a bubble-tea cafe between classes talking up Kraftwerk and Human League, lamenting such music lost artifacts of a bygone era. Following a late-night jaunt at an off-grid nightclub offering overplayed '80s hits, they'd hang out at an after-hours noodle house, sharing overheard stories of love-sick peers. Then they'd get it in their heads that all these interests could translate into some throwback synth-pop of their own. No pretense of super-stardom or something as daft as spearheading an ironic retro-revival. They had neither the interest, nor the marketing to accomplish as such. Just music-making on a shoestring budget, using used gear long abandoned by the industry at large, performing songs of a simple, intimate nature. Something like that, anyway.

While Ladytron was quick to grow and evolve from these humble roots, I find myself returning to their debut album more than the others, for no other reason than it captures the band in a moment they couldn't replicate if they tried. They gained more gear, stronger song-writing ability, and overall better production in subsequent records, thus there's an undeniable charm in hearing early fussing about with comparatively clunky keyboards and bulky synths, wrestling with an off-key hook while a melancholy organ melody quavers overtop and Helen Marnie sing-whispers about doomed relationships... I dunno', there's just something strangely relatable here.

It's like the difficulty and unpredictability of their gear mirrors the difficulty and unpredictability of navigating relationships within their songs. Wondering whether the drunken mess you're going out with is worth your while, or whether the big-city life you wanted is as you'd imagined while living in a small town. These aren't world-shattering matters, but when you're young and aimless, having the chance to spend another breakfast with someone, anyone, can feel like the most important event ever. Musing over a boy taking the same girl you took to a movie never sounded so poignant, except perhaps as warbled by acoustic folkies.

That the topics in these songs are as simple as their paired synth-pop melodies, some thought Ladytron's act was initially a gimmick (hence them getting lumped in with gimmick electroclash groups). After two decades of studio advances, why would anyone make pop music with such difficult music contraptions, some of which barely created sounds that could be considered musical? It definitely got them noticed out of the pack though, a group crafting surprisingly catchy tunes while sounding as rough and unpolished as any garage rock band of the day. At a time when pop music was as slick and corporate as it would ever be, hearing something just as ear-friendly but far more authentic and real was almost a God-send for Serious Music Aficionados. Why yes The White Stripes were also very popular around this time, why do you ask?

Sunday, February 11, 2018

Ladytron - Velocifero

Nettwerk: 2008

It took them four albums and nearly a decade, but Ladytron finally, finally, found themselves a label that wouldn't drop them (Invicta Hi-Fi, Island Records) or collapse (Telstar, Emperor Norton). It only seems appropriate that it was Vancouver-based Nettwerk that would take them in, what with their debut album being a reference to the city's area code number. And hey, the print even had ties to new wave and synth-pop since their earliest years, so it's not like Ladytron was out of place there. Sure, Nettwerk's taken a few odd tangents over the decades, but a former electroclash band that was never electroclash in the first place nicely rubs shoulders with the likes of Sarah McLachlan, Skinny Puppy, and Delerium.

By this point, Ladytron was quite evolved from the charming, bristly synth-pop that marked their early work. They were now sounding like an actual band, with actual instruments like drums and guitars to go with their stockade of retro synths. And if the New Order and Depeche Mode influences were only hinted at in tangent with the obvious Kraftwerk and Human League nods, they fully embrace them in Velocifero, their rockiest outing yet. I mean, 'rockiest' in sounding rock-like, not 'rockiest' in sounding shaky and uncertain. 'Rock-like', as in rock 'n' roll, not the stones we find strewn about the ground. The music, I mean, not the act of sex. Curse my language of multiple meanings.

A couple things make Velocifero a decidedly unique album from the previous three. One, Ladytron employ more of a 'wall-of-sound' production to their music this time out. Even when things sometimes got chaotic with their older tunes, you could always pick out distinct sounds apart from each other. That's barely the case in Velocifero though, every vocal, synth, guitar and drum machine melting into a homogeneous whole of dense reverb and echo effects, instrumentation acting more like layers of timbre rather than individual set pieces. For sure you can still identify an organ tone from a drum kick, or Mira's Bulgarian lyrics from Helen's sultry lisp (*swoon*), but more than ever before, they all are in service of the musical whole.

This leaves the album as something of a double-edged sword, though. Front to back, Velocifero is easily the most consistent and flowing LP Ladytron ever put out. By the same token though, it lacks those instant ear-worm tunes that forever (and a day) get lodged in your head. Absolutely there's still wonderful songs on here. Singles Ghosts, Runaway, and Tomorrow hit insta' pop triggers the group have always done with ease, while Burning Up, The Lovers, and Versus yank all the feels out of my spleen-soul, leaving me aching for more. Yet when the album ends, old hits like Destroy Everything You Touch and Discotraxx pop into my head first, individual songs on Velocifero fading away into an amorphous glob of sound that dominates the album's production. Whatever, I can still vibe on some amorphous glob of sound, especially when it's coming from Ladytron.

Sunday, September 17, 2017

Ladytron - Witching Hour

Island Records/Nettwerk: 2005/2011

Hard to believe this is only my second Ladytron review, but it's not like the foursome have made a ton of music over the years. To date, they've released five albums (though a sixth is in the works), their last one coming out way back in ye' olde year of 2011. I suppose that hectic touring schedule caused a bit of the ol' burn-out, plus they aren't the quirky young electro-pop chickens of the early '00s anymore. I'm sure members now have families to tend to, side-projects to cultivate, and whatever else that can keep a four-piece with as disparate backgrounds as these lads and lasses have from reuniting with consistency. Maybe that's why, for as much as I adore Ladytron's sound, I've always been hesitant in buying up their albums in one big splurge. I want to savour the ones that do come out for as long as humanely possible, never risking my own burn-out.

After yet another round of label troubles, Ladytron released their third album Witching Hour in 2005, one of the worst years for electronic music since the initial rave explosion. Fortunately, the group somehow stands outside time and space, the record just as sonically timeless as their previous work, yet also pertinent to the trends happening in the here (there) and now (then). It's a very good album, is what I'm saying, in a year when finding very good albums was a ridiculous feat of excavation that would make Indiana Jones and Globetrotting Batman quiver in the knees.

It was also a radical departure from the pure synth-heavy sound the group had in their early work, bringing in added drums and guitar work to complement their electro-pop. Some attributed it to latching onto the disco-punk wave of the time (LCD Soundsystem was the hippest band about), but I don't hear it. Rather, it simply sounds like Ladytron spent some of their hard-earned cash on new musical toys, thus letting them expand their aesthetic beyond pure retro work. Unless you figure 'post-punk new wave' just as retro as synth-pop.

It worked to some extent, Witching Hour scoring the band some of their first chart action, lead singles Destroy Everything You Touch and Sugar some of their best-selling songs. They weren't gang-busters, mind you, but considering their label troubles, it's remarkable they got on the Billboards at all. Then again, breaking the 'boards was never their M.O. I think their fans are perfectly content keeping Ladytron's impossibly earwormy choruses to themselves anyway. Saves room at the live shows.

And there's plenty more to enjoy from this album. The peppy 'rockers' (High Rise, AMTV, Weekend, Whitelightgenerator), the dreamy synth-poppers (International Dateline, Soft Power, The Last One Standing), and the moody downbeat pieces (CMYK, Beauty*2, All The Way). Throw in all the charmingly catchy, yet oddly tragic lyrics you've come to expect from Helen Marnie's satin lisp (...*swoon*), and Witching Hour remains one of Ladytron's best records. Just ignore the rubbish remixes at the end of the re-issues though.

Monday, January 20, 2014

Ladytron - Light & Magic

Nettwerk: 2002/2011

Electroclash wasn’t even a thing when Ladytron first emerged. They were more interested in recreating the late ‘70s new wave aesthetic, inspired by musical works of The Human League and the performances of Kraftwerk. When ‘everyone’ picked up on that whole ‘80s revival thing, however, the four-piece synth-poppers got roped in along with sleaze-meisters like Miss Kittin, Felix da Housecat and DJ Hell’s International Deejay Gigolos. Who cares if the lyrical content couldn’t be further worlds apart, all those vintage synths and drum machines is the link the binds them together. Right, like how using a TB-303 makes acid house and psy trance the exact same thing.

Anyhow, once the electroclash hullabaloo began its predicted recession, Ladytron re-emerged with their sophomore effort, Light & Magic. If folks figured the group would succumb to that scene’s irony-soaked topics and kitsch, they were poorly mistaken (and likely didn’t get what Ladytron was all about anyway). There’s a couple observations of the soullessness of fashion-obsessed vanity (Seventeen touches on the disposable nature of the photo industry), but by and large we’re dealing with melancholic relationships and relative emptiness in a digitized world. It’s 1982 all over again, baby!

So while the topics are similar to their debut, the tone is not. A charming innocence often ran through the first album’s songs, as though Ladytron struggled to make sense of all these weird emotions leaking from their robotic façade (having Helen Marnie’s lisping, whispering coo of a voice handle most of the lyrical duty certainly helped sell the image). A little older and mature now, Light & Magic has them clearly aware of what’s going on in relationships, and coming away rather cynical in the process, properly sold with detached vocoders and effects throughout (God, I can barely even hear Helen in the titular cut). Well, probably. Ladytron’s lyrics are usually intentionally vague, equally working at a surface level or with deeper intent. Good pop music, in other words.

And speaking of music, the synths and beats are much slicker and beefier without losing any of the retro-charm that made them synth-pop delights. Damn, the way some of these choral chord changes force their way into your ears is insidious. Seventeen’s is an obvious highlight, being that it was the lead single for the album, but Light & Magic, The Reason Why and Evil are no slouches either. As for the actual music, Ladytron run the gamut from icy-cool electro (Turn It On, Re: Agents, Cease2xist, and Black Plastic, sounding more like a Kitten & Hacker cut), chipper, rocky techno (True Mathematics, Nuhorizons), booming baroque (Startup Chime), and is that a touch of the old-school house I hear in Flicking Your Switch?

If Ladytron’s charms have yet to win you over, this album probably won’t convert you, as the pop potential of their sound is subdued compared to other releases. In fact, it took me a bit to warm to Light & Magic, but I can never resist Helen’s voice for long. *swoon*

Things I've Talked About

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