Also this issue: Mount Vernon Blues Label hassles and sonic shifts can’t stop GFS Productions from duly appointed drum and bass rounds. -A.D. Amorosi Review: Anner Bylsma -Peter Burwasser Bella Morte -Helen Thompson Dave Burrell -Kyle Parker Four Tenors -Kyle Parker The Blood Brothers -A.D. Amorosi The Post -A.D. Amorosi Joe McPhee/William Parker/ Harold Smith -Kyle Parker

February 13-19, 2003

musicpicks

Ladytron

For those too young to have domino danced with the Pet Shop Boys or driven with a best friend while listening to Depeche Mode, then Liverpool's Ladytron may be a good (modern) place to start down the Trans-Europe express. Any band named after a Roxy Music song is going to exude some sort of sex appeal and Ladytron seems to specialize in the gaunt, omnisexual verity of those early '80s New Romanticists. Though the foursome does share a hometown with the more guitar-oriented Echo & the Bunnymen and Julian Cope (plus some more notable icons), Ladytron's music could be the soundtrack to germ-phobic pornography. The band's clinical and synthesized take on pop combined with the music's danceablity (the kids do love to dance these days) and the aforementioned asexual, model look has made Ladytron one of the "It" bands of the moment. Light & Magic (Emperor Norton), the follow-up to the debut, 604, is percolating with anthems for the blasé, such as the album's first single, "Seventeen," where the band reworks the stuttered drum machine of "Blue Monday," adds some of the lush synth that made the first Air album work and tops it off with "They only want you when you're 17/ When 21 you're no fun." While this could be a warning against the modeling industry, Ladytron does strike a chord to bring discotheque etiquette to the sweater-and-horn-rimmed-glasses crowd.

Sun., Feb. 16, 7 p.m., $14, with Simian and Phaser, The Trocadero, 1003 Arch St., 215-922-LIVE.

—Paul Burress