Ladytron Suture Together Stephen King, David Cronenberg, and J.G. Ballard in Their Video for “Deadzone”

Today UK synthpop quartet Ladytron have released their haunting video for “Deadzone”, a track culled from their critically acclaimed eponymous sixth studio album.

Bringing forth the post-punk legacy of the 1973 novel Crash—Crash, which inspired the song “Warm Leatherette” by The Normal, and “Kiss The Girls” by Siouxsie Project The Creatures, the video’s theme mutates from the J.G. Ballard story initially featured in the author’s 1970 collection The Atrocity Exhibition into an eerily erotic Frank Darabont meets Danny Boyle style zombie horror.

Suturing together tangentially related themes, the title “Deadzone” refers to the 1979 Stephen King novel The Dead Zone, a book which was adapted into a David Cronenberg directed film starring Christopher Walken, where following a car crash, a man wakes up from a coma with psychic powers, ultimately being forced to stop a Nuclear holocaust caused by Donald Trump-like figure Greg Stillson.

Interesting to note that Ballard too predicted the rise of such populist demagogues in The Atrocity Exhibition as well.

The video for Ladytron’s “Deadzone” is directed by the band’s frequent collaborator Bryan M. Ferguson, and depicts two survivors of a car crash interlocked in a morbid post-modern dance. The scene opens on two vehicles that have collided head-on, where the plot still remains suspended in the logic of  Cronenberg’s 1996 film adaptation of Crash shifting slowly as the music picks up, and the two awaken, gravitating toward each other, in a grotesque, twitchy, carnally macabre ballet, ultimately evoking the unsettling visual style of music video directors such as Chris Cunningham.

40 years plus after The Normal set this concept to music, Ladytron has created the definitive imagery set to the theme of J.G. Ballard’s seminal work.

Watch “Deadzone” below:

“Deadzone” is featured on Ladytron’s 2018 self-titled album, the band’s first record since 2011’s Gravity The Seducer.

Recently Ladytron also released a remix EP “Night Versions” for the album’s single “Far From Home”

This Autumn, Ladytron will be embarking on a series of North American dates during the month of October, starting with a concert on the 2nd at Brooklyn Steel, and finishing at Danforth Music Hall in Toronto on the 5th.

This will be followed by a break that sees several dates in the UK.

The rest of the tour will continue at the Metro in Chicago on December 11th, and closeout at the UC Theatre in Berkley on the 14th.

TOUR DATES:

• October 2, Brooklyn Steel, New York, NY
• October 3, Royale, Boston, MA
• October 4, S.A.T., Montreal, QC
• October 5, Danforth Music Hall, Toronto, ON
• October 18, La Belle Angele, Edinburgh, Scotland
• October 19, O2 Ritz, Manchester, England
• October 24, London, Heaven, England
• December 11, Metro, Chicago, IL
• December 12, Neptune, Seattle, WA
• December 13, Wonder Ballroom, Portland, OR
• December 14, The UC Theatre, Berkeley, CA