Thursday, December 4th, 2008

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<p>Electroclash quartet Ladytron will play at a Campus Events
concert at noon today in Bruin Plaza.

Electroclash quartet Ladytron will play at a Campus Events concert at noon today in Bruin Plaza.

Electric Ladytron

LADYTRON CONCERT Today, noon Bruin Plaza, FREE

As far as musical uppers and downers are concerned, Ladytron has found a way to integrate energy on the stage with its electronic mood-based ethos.

Hailing from Liverpool, the oft-dubbed electroclash foursome will be playing a free show in Bruin Plaza today at noon, courtesy of UCLA’s Campus Events Commission. After touring internationally for its 2005 release “Witching Hour,” the band’s signature bleak-chic mantra is more prominent than ever – Ladytron has adopted more gothic fashion, moving away from the military costuming it wore on past tours.

The album rises above normal associations of the electroclash genre as the band’s revamped look – and new-found mastery of melodic songcraft – iconically showcases its growth. While previous albums drew abstractly from their influences, this album finds itself in closer contact with a solid musical identity. And according to Mira Aroyo, vocalist and keyboardist for Ladytron this identity is the one the band is happiest with so far.

“It takes awhile to find your own sound,” Aroyo said. “With every album we’ve tried to do something better than the previous, both with sound and songwriting. It all evolves quite naturally and we’re very conscious of staying away from a formula.”

Ladytron’s set at Coachella this year was testament that its pale-faced, stoic aesthetic is capable of energizing an audience.

“You could see us come onstage as it was getting dark, and you could see the palm trees in the background while the audience was dancing away,” Aroyo said.

The band is known for using no loops or pre-recorded music during performances, instead translating the heavily embedded textures of its albums in real time.

“It’s more song-based with us, and everything is played and translated live,” Aroyo said. “It gives a lot more of a groovy, natural sound to things. We don’t like the song to suffer onstage, we like it to emerge with the analog synth.”

For the Los Angeles leg of its tour, Aroyo said Ladytron’s set list is not going to differ too greatly from the ones the group has already played, but the band has plenty in store to kick up the mix. Ladytron played and DJ’d at the El Rey on Tuesday, in costume, for a special Halloween show, a holiday which Aroyo describes as being like Christmas for the band. In addition, Brazilian dance-pop band CSS, which played a show at UCLA last Thursday, has been the opening act for many of Ladytron’s shows, generating hype and sold-out venues.

“CSS is really good fun,” Aroyo said. “They get us really energized before we go on and they put us and the audience in the right mood. They excite them and then we bring them down.”

It is evident in this bipolarity, as well as Ladytron’s self-proclaimed influences (which Aroyo says range from Bob Dylan to classical to My Bloody Valentine), that the band’s list of diverse musical influences is not derived from style, but momentum and attitude, according to Aroyo.

Today’s campus show will be the band’s last Los Angeles show and the end of its well-received homecoming, for lack of a better term.

“(Playing in) L.A. is like a homecoming gig for us in more ways than playing in London and Liverpool, because our first two records were based out of L.A. We’ve always felt at home here,” she said.

For a dark, stoic band, a daytime show should present even more bipolarities. But as long as the members of the crowd are enjoying themselves, Ladytron is willing to make anyone dance.

“We’ve never played a proper college show, but a younger crowd is usually better for us because we get a lot of energy out of the audience,” Aroyo said. “It’s very symbiotic – they need to enjoy themselves for us to enjoy it. Hopefully they’ll be dancing and jumping around so that we can vamp off their energy as well.”