Jonathan Dowland: Ladytron
I saw Ladytron perform in Digital, Newcastle last night. The
last time I saw them was, I think, at the same venue, 18 years ago. Time flies!
Back in the day (perhaps their heyday, perhaps not!) Ladytron ploughed a
particular sonic furrow and did it very well. Going into the gig I had set my
expectations that, should they play just these hits, I’d have a good time.
The gig exceeded my expectations. The setlist very much did not lean into
their best-known period: the more recent few albums were very well represented
and to me this felt very confident. The lead singer, Helen Marnie, demonstrated
some excellent range, particularly on some of the new songs. Daniel Hunt did a
lot of backing vocals and they were really complementary to Helen’s: underscoring
but not overpowering. I enjoyed nerding out watching Mira Ayoro’s excellent
wrangling of her Korg MS-20. One highlight was an encore performance of
Light & Magic, which was arguably the “alternate version” as available on the
expanded versions of that album or the Remixed and Rare companion.
I thought I’d try to put together a 5-track playlist for a friend who attended
the gig but isn’t super familiar with them. As usual this is hard. I’m going
to avoid the obvious hits, try to represent their whole career and try to
ensure the current trio each get a vocal turn in the selection.
They actually released their latest album, Paradises, yesterday as well. One
track from it is in the list below.
He took her to a movie by Ladytron
(If you can’t see anything, the bandcamp embeds have been stripped out by
whatever you are viewing this with)
