On Ladytron’s first trip to the US in 2001, after signing with Emperor Norton Records, band cofounder Daniel Hunt remembers visiting San Francisco, once home to Joshua A. Norton, the eccentric self-proclaimed “Emperor of the United States” who inspired the label’s name.
The local electro scene was still loose and undefined—the short-lived electroclash genre that Liverpool’s Ladytron was eventually lumped into wouldn’t break through until the following year, making artists like Peaches, Fischerspooner, Miss Kittin & The Hacker, and, of course, Ladytron setlist favorites among DJs like Omar Perez and Jennifer Young at local club nights The Finger, Sex with Machines, and Club Fake.
Hunt remembers staying in Berkeley and seeing The UC Theatre during that visit, long before a headlining engagement seemed realistic. “Obviously, this was the very early days for Ladytron,” he told 48 Hills. “I don’t even know if I had it in my head that we would ever play there.”
After finally appearing there in 2019, Ladytron returns for a May 30 show at the UC Theatre, bringing Paradises with them.
The new album reconnects the band with the colder, rhythmic energy that first made it stand out on its breakthrough record, 2001’s 604.
Ladytron’s local history spans years of Bay Area performances, especially at The Fillmore. Hunt recalled one especially intense show there, where an extended improvisational section seemed to take on a life of its own as the crowd undulated in response.
“I said after the song that it didn’t feel like us playing,” he says. “It felt like the building had just basically possessed us.”
For a band often associated with sleek detachment and carefully controlled moods, Ladytron sounds surprisingly loose and energized when talking about Paradises. The record arrives after years marked by disruption: a pandemic-era album cycle, lineup changes, touring interruptions, and long stretches of uncertainty.
But Hunt described the experience of making the new record as a reset. “The last record we tried to make in the middle of a pandemic was really, really difficult,” he says. “This one felt ecstatic in comparison.”
Across Paradises, Hunt and co-vocalists and keyboardists Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo move between darker synth-pop, dance music, cinematic ballads, and bright electronic textures without sounding trapped by nostalgia.
The album was written between late 2023 and early 2025 in cities including the band’s native Liverpool, São Paulo, Montrose, Dalston, and London, though much of its momentum came from a faster and more instinctive creative process than the band had experienced in years.
“It was like being reminded of why we do this,” says Hunt. “That was kind of a motivation for it to be fun again.”
The title itself emerged accidentally. References to paradise and imagined worlds kept creeping into the lyrics until the band realized the idea had quietly become a thread connecting the album.
“We’ve all got our different ideas or ideals of paradise,” says Marnie. “There are a few of us in the band, and we’re all writing from different perspectives, so it makes sense to be plural.”
The current version of Ladytron also reflects a gradual transition following the departure of longtime member Reuben Wu, whose focus shifted increasingly toward photography over the last decade. While Hunt and Marnie say the songwriting process itself has not dramatically changed, the absence initially affected the dynamic of the live shows.
“It was like we were a gang,” Marnie says. “It took a while for me to get used to it without him.”
But Ladytron has settled into a new rhythm. Hunt says the upcoming US run—including the Berkeley stop—feels like the true beginning of the Paradises tour after a handful of warm-up dates in England.
The Bay Area crowds will also get a setlist heavily focused on the new material. “The new album is so good, if I do say so myself,” jokes Hunt. “The audience is excited about this album. They want to hear it.”
More than 20 years after emerging from the early-2000s electronic underground, Ladytron has outlasted nearly every tag attached to it, including the electroclash label that trailed the band through the beginning of its career.
“We just spent the whole time in denial,” Hunt says, laughing.
Over time, though, his perspective changed. Touring outside major coastal cities helped him understand how that scene looked from the outside—as a gateway into New York, Berlin, London, and a larger world of underground music culture.
“It was a very colorful and very special moment,” he says in hindsight. “I’m kind of glad that we were part of it.”
Named after a Phil Manzanera and Andy Mackay Roxy Music track, Ladytron’s influence has only become clearer in retrospect.
Marnie pointed to the explosion of synth-driven pop during the 2010s as evidence that artists like Ladytron helped shape the sound that later entered the mainstream.
“Even like Lady Gaga and things like that,” she says. “They all started with a kind of synth-driven pop music.”
“Without electroclash, there’s no Lady Gaga,” adds Hunt.
Despite the band’s long history, neither Hunt nor Marnie sounds particularly interested in becoming a nostalgia act. So the conversation around Paradises consistently returns to movement, evolution, and finding excitement in the present.
That extends to the live show itself. Ladytron’s concerts remain highly visual, with longtime collaborator Sam Wiehl creating an interconnected video world.
Still, some things about touring have changed with age. “We don’t play long tours anymore,” Hunt says. “None of us likes being away for so long. We did all that in our twenties.”
What remains intact is the band’s connection to cities like San Francisco and Berkeley—places that have followed Ladytron from early-career visits through decades of touring, lineup changes, and reinvention.
“We love going there, so we can’t wait to be back,” says Marnie.
“I love the Bay Area,” adds Hunt. “Not only was San Francisco one of the first places I visited in the States, but I’ve still got a group of friends there. I know people talk about the changes all the time and the rents going up, but as an infrequent visitor, most of the things I like about it seem to be there still.”
LADYTRON Sat/30, 8pm, The UC Theatre, Berkeley. Tickets and more info here.
