Ladytron – Gravity the Seducer
It’s one of the moments you dream of – you leaf through the racks of your favourite record shop, pull out an interesting looking record, have a listen and discover your new favourite band. This was how my love affair with Merseyside electro-rockers Ladytron started, a band that have surfed the waves of popularity yet eschewn the trappings off the ebb and flow of musical fads and pigeon-holing for over 11 years. Their latest album Gravity The Seducer adds to a burgeoning canon of work which has been described by Brian Eno as “the best of English pop music”. We collared founding member Reuben Wu for a quick-fire bout of questions about the band.
Firstly, congratulations on the new album! Did you ever think that when you started Ladytron that you would last this long?
Never. It started as a bit of fun. Since then it’s been a 12 chuck of our lives.
You are often cited as gaining fame off the back of the electroclash ‘movement’. was this ever something you identified with?
We had already released an album before Electroclash happened. We were in the middle of producing the second. We were definitely ranked as ‘pioneers’ within this scene but to be honest it was nothing new; the look, the music. We existed very much in a separate bubble, writing and producing music alone.
I understand that Japan influenced the beginnings of the band? Is there still an influence?
We released our very first EP in Japan on a Japanese label called Bambini. Steve Pross, the person responsible for giving us a break in the USA found the EP in Tokyo and signed us to his label, initially thinking we were a Japanese band. I suppose that was a very influencing event on our careers. Danny has DJ’d a few times in Japan, but we have never played there as a band. We’d absolutely love to play there.
Why do you think you are still here when so many other bands have come and gone?
I think we have been allowed to evolve as a band in our own time. I think it took 3 albums to become comfortable with our identity. Friends have said we became the band we were always setting out to be after the third album. we’re also lucky to have a very strong fan base.
I feel that Gravity the Seducer is a softer record than your last two albums, Velocifero and Witching Hour, was this a conscious decision?
Yes. We wanted to produce a record which contrasted with the previous albums – a more abstract and cinematic piece. We took a year of touring and started writing music in a mind-space which didn’t have the distraction of being on tour.
Where was the inspiration for the record from?
Everything. Our lives in general.
Do you think you will always be an analogue band or are digital techniques increasingly starting to creep in??
We have always had some digital methods in music-making. It’s not very realistic to remain completely analogue. We’ve always tried to be as modern as possible but with an understanding of what’s in the past. We don’t fetishise analogue gear. We do like it, but without digital methods we’d be in a very different position now.
Ladytron’s album Gravity the Seducer is out now.
Words: Mark Birtles
Translation: Asuka Ozutsumi
November 17, 2011
