ludus
ltm catalogue


Ludus was the feted musical collaboration between singer/artist Linder Sterling and musician Ian Devine, who recorded several albums and singles for the labels New Hormones and Les Disques Du Crepuscule between 1980 and 1983. The entire Ludus recorded catalogue is now available on LTM across three digitally remastered CDs. To read full Ludus biography click here. To purchase CDs click here.


THE DAMAGE (LTMCD 2328) £10
The acclaimed full-length collection of remastered classics from the seminal post-punk Manchester band, who between 1980 and 1983 recorded for several labels including New Hormones, Crepuscule and Sordide Sentimental. Showcasing the music and muse of Linder Sterling and Ian Devine, the 18 tracks have been selected from across their career, including singles, album tracks and live material professionally recorded at The Hacienda in November 1982. Several of the tracks included on this anthology are not included on our other Ludus CDs. 73 minutes of music, plus a Benoit Hennebert cover image, collages by Linder, notes from Morrissey and a detailed artist biography in the booklet. Full tracklist: How High Does the Sky Go?, She She, Let Me Go Where My Pictures Go, Nue Au Soleil, Little Girls, I Can't Swim I Have Nightmares, Hugo Blanco, See the Keyhole, My Cherry is in Sherry, The Escape Artist, Mirror Mirror (live), Wrapped in Silence (live), Too Hot to Handle (live), The Fool, Patient (7" version), Howling Comique, Breaking the Rules.

Reviews:"A forgotten enigma - placed beside recent works by Le Tigre or Peaches, the likes of Breaking the Rules insist that Ludus were actually a group unique for, and ahead of, their time" (Uncut, 4/02); "Highlights come from 1982's Seduction lp, where band partner Ian Devine provides staccato jazz-funk rhythms as Sterling declaims perplexing couplets" (Q magazine, 6/02); "Breaking the Rules is one of the most hectoring, unimpeachably brilliant pop songs over" (City Life, 4/02); "A compilation of their finest moments and a timely reminder of the art-punk axis within which they worked" (The Wire, 3/02); "Linder was a huge influence on Morrissey, educating him in sexual politics. Her shrill but warm warble sounds like a clear influence too" (Q magazine, 5/02); "The effect is delicious, a dizzy libertine idiot dance that wagged a scarlet-tipped finger before coating it in ambiguous ellipses and psycho-sexual allusions. This 18 track trawl moves from wilfully obtuse Diamanda Galas-outs to the pop goes the orgy, sugar-and-spice subversion of Breaking the Rules, while the cover of Nue Au Soleil is Stereolab waiting to happen. With knobs on" (The Herald, 3/02); "Not really so far from what Weekend, French Impressionists and Pale Fountains were doing at the time, but with free-jazz teeth a la Pop Group, Slits and their Bristol ilk, but with none of their dreary dub pretensions" (Drowning in Culture, 7/02)


PICKPOCKET/DANGER CAME SMILING (LTMCD 2338) £10
Pickpocket/Danger Came Smiling collects together two Ludus albums from 1982, both originally released on New Hormones, with the largely improvised Danger Came Smiling standing as the bands' most avant garde material. The CD features the original cover art by Linder, as well as a detailed artist biography. Digitally remastered from the original tapes, 24 tracks, 71 minutes of music. Full tracklist: Patient, The Fool, Hugo Blanco, Mutilate, Box, Mouthpiece, Foaming at the Bit, Howling Comique, You Open My Legs Like a Book, Flogging Cully, Mememoremee, Invasion of Compulsory Sex-Morality, I Stabbed at the Sheep, Mistresspiece, Bloody Chamber, Would You Rather Dancing Be, Wonder-Wounded, Savasana, Bitch Party, Modju, Palace of Thieves, Redress, Crinkum-Crankum, Centuries.

Reviews: "Evinces a wildly experimental fusion of visionary, progressive feminism, tangled, jazz-inspired art-rock jangle and vocal exploration that recalls Yoko Ono and, more often, maverick opera star Cathy Berberian" (Mojo, 12/02); "Rapidly advances through Devine's highlife-inspired guitar on songs like The Escape Artist through a liberating encounter with free jazz, towards an intermittent adandonment of sung words in favour of Linder's scat-phatic improvisations" (The Wire, 04/06); "A twofer of albums recorded in 1980 and 1981, that saw LInder confront the caveman attitudes towards women in rock which had survived punk. This she did in multiple, sarcastic vocals styles, against a tight but meandering backdrop of Beefheart/jazz-inflected guitar arrangements. Far from having dated, tracks like Herstory are as challenging to sexist and musical assumptions as they were decades ago" (eMusic, 11/06); "As with all guilty pleasures, every home should have at least one to chew on in private" (Glasgow Herald, 9/02); "Ludus are surely the art and architecture of Malevich, Tatlin and Duchamp given voice" (Careless Talk Costs Lives, 1/03)


THE VISIT/THE SEDUCTION (LTMCD 2333) £10
The Visit/The Seduction collects together three releases originally released on New Hormones. The Visit ep is the first Ludus record, dating from March 1980, and featuring the classic I Can't Swim I Have Nightmares, and is joined by the alternate single versions of Mother's Hour and Anatomy Is Not Destiny. The jewel in the crown of the Ludus back catalogue is their album The Seduction, which first appeared as a double 12" package in February 1982 and features some of Ian Devine and Linder's most accessible music (Mirror Mirror), as well as some of their most adventurous (The Dynasty). The CD features the original vinyl artwork by Linder, as well as extensive sleevenotes. Digitally remastered from the original tapes, 14 tracks, 71 minutes of music. Full tracklist: Lullaby Cheat, Unveil, Sightseeing, I Can't Swim I Have Nightmares, Mother's Hour, Anatomy is not Destiny, Unveiled, My Cherry is in Sherry, See the Keyhole, Herstory, Inheritance, The Dynasty, Mirror Mirror, The Escape Artist.

Reviews: "Linder's blood-smeared cocktail frock of a voice lived in sin with Ian Devine's high-life guitar stylings to peroduce carnal knowledge that was too cool to commit, forever at odds with its own beauteous untouchableness" (Glasgow Herald, 9/02); "Linder's voice remains a brilliantly discomforting instrument, glassy and gliding at tangents to conventional pop melodics" (Mojo, 12/02); "Rich, strange, exotic, playful and terrifying - these are words that only scratch the surface of their singular soundworld. Spectacularly unclassifiable - 8 out of 10" (Whisperin' & Hollerin', 10/02); "The Seduction is arguably their most cohesive statement, and contains their most accessible Pop songs. The swinging Mirror Mirror and The Escape Artist are like Weekend with rougher edges and sharper teeth" (Careless Talk Costs Lives, 1/03)

DEVINE & STERLING REQUIEM (LAND 14) £7
LTM have a limited number of CD copies of the 2001 collaboration between Ian Devine and Linder Sterling, titled Clint Eastwood, Claire Offreduccio and Me. This largely electronic Requiem comprises seven tracks: Enquiry, Recognition, Judgement, Invitation, Admission, Acknowledgement, Grace. These are 21 haunting minutes that any Ludus and Linder completist should not miss.

Reviews: "Working with gritty layered guitars over which Linder triggers sound samples... the piece recalls the shifting soundscapes of Fripp & Eno's No Pussyfooting. While many of the CD's themes - in particular, the parallels Linder makes between the bandlands of Spagetti Western and north Manchester, and the enduring interest in female divinity - are picked up in other Linderland works, this stands alone as a commendable experiment that can only broaden definitions of performance" (The Wire, 05/2001)

Go to Ludus biography
Go to Devine & Statton catalog

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