(CD, Invicta HiFi/Labels)
A song about a seventies football club? Check. A title with reference to the Commodore 64? Check. Two
cool girls in the band? Check. Band performs in matching silver Atari jackets? Check. Without hearing
a note of Ladytron's music you sense a meticulously planned aesthetic driving the group. Infuriating
for some perhaps. Not so if you hear the actual music, which is disarmingly brilliant. The musical
basis of '604' is well anchored in pre-acid house electronica, in Ladytron's world it is 1981
eternally, which in itself might not sound as a very revolutionary strategy, were it not for the
mind-bending execution and personal touches the band place at just the right moments. Moments like
the beginning of 'Jet Age', a song triggered by that hip hop beat or the Bulgarian children's songs
that appear seemingly at random throughout '604'. The retro basis as with Daft Punk's 'Discovery' is
deceiving. Much of '604' might be produced by the right Korg synths, but is not marred by the thin
production of most 1981 electronic music, and thankfully the bass on '604' is in full effect. Helena
and Mira meanwhile sing with a cool, yet somehow naive seductiveness, which blooms in new ways on the
amazing childlike elegy of 'Skools Out'. Best of all remains the robot-disco of 'Playgirl', such a
perfect simulation of early eighties pop that it actually triggers false android-like memories of
hearing the song as a child. Time travelling through violent shades of the future, the eroticism of
intelligence, again remembering to always trust the beauty of machines. The seduction of Ladytron is
complete.
(door Omar Muņoz in www.kindamuzik.net, 2001)
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