Ladytron is a band bridging retro and post-futurism

Down the road Garbage were fully flowing fronted by a newly confident-femme in the shape of sexy Shirley Manson while Ladytron were emitting music with a minimum of pomp. With a chillingly cool detachment, a touch of mystique, an elegant robot-esque show that musically is as exciting as Roswell-aliens stories. This makes Ladytron a band like no other, so precious at this age when sonic-cloning is the only way to chartdom.

Looking at the music industry for real, it really is a piece of dookie: you try to make some sense out of it all only to discover that sagacity hasn’t got anything to do with it. If the purpose is to understand, then showbiz fails any, but elemental, logic and fiscal benefit: there is plenty of sex – don’t you just love those Kylie non-dresses, plunging breastlines of every pop/soul/rap-ette or Robbie’s kilt – but everyone appears to have forgotten that music is what we are here for and not some soft porn.

The beauty is that nothing much happens at a Ladytron gig. This two boy, two girl quartet based in Liverpool stand still behind their synthesisers, as distant as Kraftwerk used to when they bothered to come out of a studio, dressed in all-black, dispensing their poppy-quirky-electro tunes that should be topping all the hit parades. They are as much about quality of music as they are about aesthetics, they care about the whole art-statement rather than just a ‘fictitious’ concept of entertainment.

Ladytron present themselves in a quasi-retro style – as futuro-pop was viewed twenty years ago – but twisted into something post-contemporary, avant-cyber. There is a sense of punk attitude, a nihilistic view of increasingly demoralizing urbanity, dance tunes for emotionally sterile and other automatons, a complete soundtrack for a new blank generation. The ‘604’ album is full of curious songs, an exhilarating mixture of electronics (from Krautness to Human League), French chansons (Francois Hardy, Britney of her day) and pop (from ABBA to Blondie)… In essence, “Pop music with a dark side,” as Helena aptly pinned it.

There is something strangely soulful about this deadpan (vocally) performance that is so compelling: Daniel Hunt, Reuben Wu, Mira Aroyo and Helena Marnie don’t classify their shows as “a controlled electro-sex-rock module” for propaganda purposes. And there are plenty of opportunities to test the theory: ‘Playgirl’, ‘DiscoTraxx’, ’CSKA Sofia’, ‘Commodore Rock’ or the lusciously playful ‘He Took Her To A Movie’… These songs can appear fragile, delicate, unearthly but are rooted in reality, as deep as the Reichstag’s foundations

Ladytron’s show is like a freeze-frame that neither your eyes nor ears can divert from. You are spellbound on the spot, muscles involuntarily contracting, id having a ball, dirty mind at full-throttle… Key me galaxy, baby!