Product Description

Second album from this quartet based in Liverpool and Oxford. Named after a Brian Eno era Roxy Music track, Ladytron revive the sounds of the pioneering days of electronic music influenced by The Normal, Kraftwerk and even Gary Numan. Includes the single 'Seventeen'.

Track Listing

1. True Mathematics
2. Seventeen
3. Flicking Your Switch
4. Fire
5. Turn It On
6. Blue Jeans
7. Cracked LCD
8. Black Plastic
9. Evil
10. Start Up Chime
11. Nu Horizons
12. Cease2exist
13. Re:agents
14. Light & Magic
15. The Reason Why

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #90748 in Music
• Released on: 2002-12-02
• Number of discs: 1

Amazon.co.uk Review
How does Light & Magic follow a record like 604?--On their last album, arch synth-popsters Ladytron were early if unwilling exponents of the sound now known as electroclash. Scene luminary Felix Da Housecat declared it the best electronic record he'd heard since The Human League's Dare and it certainly shared something of the same tuneful naivety. But where now for these silicon teens? Back to where they started it seems, because for all intents and purposes things remain fairly static on the musical front and there's little sign of progression in the songwriting. Keen to push their under-produced drone of buzzing analogue keyboards, biscuit-tin drum machines and "foreign spy" vocals to the max, the band unfortunately forgot to add any tunes. Sometimes its works, like the cute and eminently likable "Seventeen", but for every sequenced rumble passing itself off as retro Eurotrash there are too many motorik dirges to deal with, plus the sort of half-formed melodies no amount of ironic backing vocals can hide. Shame. --Paul Tierney

Customer Reviews

Not as hardcore as 604 but just as every bit brilliant!
I can't see to understand why anyone would want to knock this album, just because 604 was a hard act to follow, doesn't mean Light and magic cant compete. The album itself has some vintage Ladytron songs thst define the band and what thy're about. For example the smash hit Seventeen or the more instumental Blue Jeans. Light and Magic is much darker than 604 and has more emotion and depth, it can remind you of goods with bad ones. My personal faveourite songs on the album include, the dark THE REASON WHY or Blue Jeans simple but effective FLICKING YOUR SWITCH. Most records on the album are sort of songs you hear in a stylish night club and sort of songs you'd always dance to. Light and Magic like many albums is the sort of record that grows on you, the sort of record that you could not dismiss before at least 2 listens, you have to really like music and be openminded to like Ladytron as they are so different to pop and rock culture we see today, although they have a cult following. Many of my friends just automatically dismissed Ladytron because of their genre but these are Oasis obsessed people where doesnt mean a lot to them, just sound. Anyway back to the point LIGHT AND MAGIC i promise will not dissapoint if ure a music lover like me, so buy the record and give it chance to grow! i give 11/10 im sure you will too.

Amazon is spot - weak second record
Just a quick review to say that I completely agree with Paul Tierney's assessment for Amazon above.

604 is a brilliant, lively and cheeky little album that is full of delicately delivered melodies. Light & Magic, by contrast, is Ladytron by numbers and lacks any of the melodic sparkle of the first, with the exception of the single Seventeen. Towards the end it does descend into little more than dirge. They've neglected to write any songs basically.

That having been said, it is still a record worth listening to because Ladytron have an inherently interesting sound. As a follow-up though, it is a weak successor.

The missing link between Propaganda and Add N To (X)
Ladytron are four keyboard players/ composers based in Liverpool who formed in 1998, and comprise Mira Aroyo who is Bulgarian (one track, NuHorizons, is sung in her native tongue) and Helen Marnie, sharing vocal duties; Danny Hunt, responsible for programming and production; and co-founder Reuben Wu. 
It may be that a Ladytron is a make of North Korean tractor or an extinct form of winged insect, but I first came across the name as a song on the first Roxy Music album, and I suspect this band did too. They seem to have taken their inspiration not so much from the song or the sound, but from the concept of the name, at once robotic and oestrogenic. The result is twenty-first century electro-synth pop of a high order, as post-ironic cold and disembodied female voices chant against chugging Numanesque soundscapes; the missing link between Propaganda and Add N To (X). 
On this 17-track album, recorded in Liverpool and Los Angeles between 2001 and 2002, their are assisted by Michael Fitzpatrick (programming), Malibu (yet more keyboards) and Justin Meldal Johnson (electric bass).
Three of the catchiest songs have been released as singles (possibly in different versions) - Blue Jeans, Evil and Seventeen, though several others could just as well have been. Seventeen was no. 31 in the 2002 Festive Fifty, and turns up additionally as a guitar-laden remix by Soulwax on this CD. Another track, Cracked LCD, also featured on the CDS of Evil, while an earlier version of the instrumental USA Vs White Noise had appeared on their Mu-Tron EP in 2000