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Aug 22, 2022 By Caleb Campbell

Since debuting with 2001’s 604, Liverpool outfit Ladyton have made their mark as leading lights of electro pop, influencing countless artists from the underground to the mainstream. Last fans heard from the band, they had just put out their 2019 self-titled record, their first in seven years. We at Under the Radar also caught up with the band last year while revisiting some of the bands we interviewed in our first issue.

This year, Ladytron are celebrating their own milestone with the 20th anniversary of their seminal 2002 record, Light & Magic. To accompany it, the band have dived into the archives, assembling a treasure trove of unseen material including a teaser reel and a short film of the recording process in Los Angeles. Today, they have shared a previously unreleased video for the album’s title track, “Light & Magic,” exclusively premiering with Under the Radar.

After being shot on slide film, the track’s new video lay incomplete for two decades. Befitting the track, the video plays out in a mix of light, shadow, and undefinable magic, casting stills from the era in colorful close-ups. As the band explains, “When we released Light & Magic it was expected that the title track would be a later single, and would therefore need a video clip of its own. But we were on the road and didn’t know how it would be done. We had all this beautiful slide film shot and envisaged animating it in some way, like a 1970s science fiction title sequence - Sapphire and Steel or something like that. We disappeared on the road, plans changed, and ideas were forgotten. Twenty years later here it is.”

Check out the video below. More unseen and unheard material from to band is still to come until the anniversary of the album’s release on September 17.

You can also read our interview with Ladytron on their self-titled album.