Ladytron‘s excellent second album, Light & Magic, turns 20 on September 17, and to celebrate they’ve been releasing new videos for songs off the album. We’ve got the premiere of “Black Plastic,” which features video and photos of the band in Los Angeles, working on the album and having some fun, too. There’s also some informative “making of” text to go along with it.
“‘Black Plastic’ is a little time capsule of our 2002 recording sessions in Hollywood for Light & Magic,” says Ladytron’s Daniel Hunt. “We are kids. We look ready to take on the world. Hazy, nostalgic, and how we remember it.” Here’s a little more recollection from Dan:
“Making our second album in Los Angeles seemed counterintuitive at the time, at least amongst our peers, but it made perfect sense for us: our label Emperor Norton was there, and there was this group of wildly talented people in LA who wanted to work with us on it. While we were recording what was a very different sounding record to what else was around, this huge electro thing kicked off, and we were positioned as if leaders of it. It was a strange moment, as we were cut off in this creative bubble, and not communicating with the press, yet they were talking like we were the future of rock and roll. Perhaps we were.
When going through the archives for the anniversary of Light & Magic we found photos and video we had literally never seen. CD-Rs, a mountain of cuttings, MiniDV, VHS and Betacam tapes, and years’ worth of tour footage. All this documentation that our label sent us and we didn’t even look at. We wanted to use the found material to convey not just how it looked and sounded, but how that moment felt. It is just one of many untold stories.”