2001 • Indietronica • Invicta Hi-Fi\
Compact Disc Album
Fun fact: *604* is named after Vancouver’s area code.
Why? I have no idea. Ladytron isn’t from Vancouver. They’re from Liverpool.
Hard to believe now, but there was a time when electronics were largely looked down on in the indie scene. If you made music with synths, you were either a band like Stereolab using vintage gear that alluded to 60s psychedelia; or you were something like Disco Inferno—so colossally weird that indie fans wouldn’t even touch you.
Then, in the early 2000s, the dam BROKE.
Synths stopped being a dirty instrument. Suddenly you had acts as far apart as LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip, and The Postal Service getting embraced by the subculture.
Ladytron were part of that crowd. But what made them stand out was that cool, deadpan delivery.
A lot of that came from Mira Aroyo, who is Bulgarian and often sang in Bulgarian instead of English. And this is actually the only popular band I know that sings in Bulgarian. Aroyo makes the language sound futuristic.
The other thing that separates Ladytron from a lot of electronic bands is the songwriting. Plenty of electronic music leans on loops, layers, textures, and long build-ups.
Ladytron embraced verse-chorus-verse. You can hear it all over *604*, especially on songs like “Playgirl” and “Seventeen.”
People often called Ladytron electroclash, but I don’t really hear much in common with Fischerspooner, Peaches, or earlier acts like the Human League. Ladytron aren’t trying to shock you. They aren’t trying to be ironic either.
Instead, they’re stark. Perhaps even brutalist. Maybe with a little Soviet kitsch hanging around the edges.
If there’s one band they remind me of, it’s Kraftwerk. Same disciplined approach. Similar geometric, austere presentation too. Sometimes, like Kraftwerk, they performed in matching uniforms.
But Ladytron has something Kraftwerk doesn’t: sex. Not thrown in your face. Just sitting there quietly underneath everything.
And that’s why, even now, *604* still holds up.
