DETAILS
LADYTRON
w/ Datarock. May 20 (8pm). Starlite Room (10030-102 St). Tickets $25, available through Ticketmaster, Megatunes, Blackbyrd, Listen.
Midway through my interview with Ladytron’s Reuben Wu, he asks if I wouldn’t mind calling him back. A blast of noise in the background on his end signals that it’s time for soundcheck—he and the band are in Valencia in support of their fourth album, Velocifero (the word is Italian for “bringer of speed”), due out on Nettwerk June 3.
Most musical acts will tell you that the first few tour stops are spent working out the kinks. But even through stops in Germany, France, Holland, Belgium, and Spain, Wu says it’s actually for the benefit of places like Edmonton that they want to make things perfect.
“Our biggest market has always been North America,” Wu says. “Generally, we have a bigger following over there than we do on this side of the world. To be honest, out of all Europe, we’re probably least well-known in our own country. In Liverpool, we’ve always had a strong underground following, but the music scene in England seems to be quite conventional—quite traditional, really. Basically, if you’re not in a band with boys playing rock ’n’ roll guitars, then you’re not really recognized as having the potential to become popular. North American audiences have a bit more appreciation and open-mindedness about what pop music is.”
Ladytron is a big enough name in Edmonton to have landed Wu some DJ gigs here in the past, but Tuesday’s show will mark the much-awaited local debut of the entire band. It seems sort of strange to think of blue-collar burgs like Edmonton being Ladytron’s bread and butter, if only because they seem like such a quintessential Euro band: a dark and mysterious-looking foursome behind a wall of eight (count ’em! eight!) keyboards—all churning out brooding, analog-heavy psychedelic synth pop. Alien-sounding? Maybe. But Wu insists he and bandmates Helen Marnie, Daniel Hunt, and Mira Aroyo are just as human as you or me.
“Frankly, eight keyboards really do look good onstage,” he laughs, noting that people can still count on seeing and hearing drums, bass, guitar, and other exotic instruments at the live show. “But we’ve always had loads of keyboards—it’s always been a big part of our identity. When we started out, a lot of people got fixated on them and thought we were either like Kraftwerk or Human League, when in fact we don’t really have any specific influences. I don’t know why we do it. Maybe it’s some kind of strange fetish. But we’ve never really been into science fiction and the whole ‘We’re using synthesizers, come from outer space, stand next to highrise buildings, and look serious’ kind of thing.”
Instead, he says Ladytron’s human element comes from sources like ’60s French pop icon Serge Gainsbourg and country music legend Lee Hazlewood—both of whom find a home on Velocifero. Co-produced with Ed Banger Records’ Vicarious Bliss and Nine Inch Nails’ Alessandro Cortini (who plans to deliver a remix of the album’s first single, “Ghosts”), Wu proudly proclaims Velocifero is the group’s most accomplished work to date.
Of course, that’s what critics said about Ladytron’s last album, 2005’s Witching Hour. And indeed, the song on Velocifero that Wu says he’s happiest about, “Tomorrow,” is one that didn’t make the cut on Witching Hour. Meanwhile, “Velocifero” is the title of a song they decided to drop from the new disc.
“It’s just a nice word that captures elements of the new record, whose whole theme is this kind of expansive, escapist sort of thing,” Wu says. “When we released Witching Hour, it was a milestone album for us. It was the album that we were most happy with sound- and songwriting-wise. Velocifero was kind of taking what we had achieved and taking it to another place. It’s strange because this album seems like another first album. It was like starting all over again—and it’s nice to have that fresh start.”
