MARTHA LADLY: THE JOYS OF DILETANTEISM

by Patrick Barrett

Above is the sleeve design for the 12” version of New Order’s ‘Everything’s Gone Green’ single. Released in 1981, it won the Silver citation award for Best Record Sleeve design from the British Designers and Art Directors Association. Peter Saville is generally credited with having produced all of New Order and Joy Division’s artwork. This award, however, went to his then collaborator, Martha Ladly. Thanks in part to the slew of Joy Division and Factory Records retrospectives and documentaries in recent years, Saville’s story is relatively well known. Conversely, and despite enjoying a transatlantic career in music and graphic design that saw her collaborate with countless luminaries of the post-punk world, and Robert Palmer, Ladly’s story remains, to most, unknown.

Born in 1960, the Canadian Martha Ladly had the fortune to be attending Art College at the height of Punk in 1977. Typically for an art student she longed to be in a band and this wish was fulfilled when she was approached by a former school friend to join the then fledgling Martha & The Muffins, the only Canadian post-punk outfit history has seen fit to remember. Ladly supplied keyboards and backing vocals to the group, although she did not lend her name to the band’s, that honour instead falling to lead singer Martha Johnson. The Muffins quickly established themselves on the local circuit and after one independent single release were picked up by Virgin records offshoot DinDisc and hauled over to the UK to record their debut album. These sessions were to spawn what would become the band’s sole worldwide hit; Echo Beach. It was through Martha and The Muffins that, in 1979, Ladly first came in to contact with Peter Saville. As with many other DinDisc releases, he was to provide the band’s artwork. He rather unimaginatively chose to house the Echo Beach vinyl in a map of Toronto Beach. Their second album’s cover was an improvement and saw Ladly’s art background come to the fore – the artwork being the first collaboration between her and Saville. By the time of its release however, Martha was no longer in the group. The pressures caused by their rapid rise to fame, and perhaps the pressure of having two Marthas in one band, caused relations to become fractious and, following a UK tour supporting Roxy Music - probably spent avoiding the advances of lothario Bryan Ferry - Ladly walked. This didn’t stop the band releasing the Ladly penned and sung ‘Was Ezo’ as a single in 1981.

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Martha and The Muffins - Echo Beach

Martha returned to complete her studies, but was not ready to leave music behind. In 1981 she released a solo single, ‘Finlandia’, under the guise of Martha Ladly and the Scenery Club. It should have been a bigger hit, bearing as it did a distinct resemblance to the theme from Blackadder the Third, however this was to be the Scenery Club’s only release. The next chapter in Ladly’s career would see her relocate to the UK. Reacquainting herself with Peter Savile, the two became an item and moved in together. She became one of the Peter Saville Associates and the two began collaborating on artwork projects, predominantly for Factory Records and their artists. The sleeve for New Order’s 1981-1982 EP is one such work. Saville was at this point entering his appropriation phase, layering retrieved pieces with minimalist design, as evidenced on the cover of Joy Division’s Closer amongst others. The sleeve for the 1981-1982 EP appears to be another example of this style, yet the cubist painting at the centre of the design is in fact the work of Ladly’s hand.

Martha had by now immersed herself in the early eighties independent music scene of the English northwest. Her invisible influence was felt beyond artwork design. It was Ladly who came up with the title for Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark’s 1981 album Architecture and Morality, a title the band liked because, in singer Andy McCluskey’s words, “it was a sort of metaphor for our own music: we have the electronic structure - the architecture, the inhuman machine; and we have the morality which is the warmth and the empathy and the vocals and the humanity. The tension created by the juxtaposition is where we saw the strength of our music being derived from.” Merely providing artwork and album titles for bands clearly wasn’t enough for the restless Ladly as she continued to pursue a concurrent music career. In 1982 Bryan Ferry (another Peter Saville Associates client) came calling again. Anyone familiar with Roxy Music’s live performances, or even their live album covers, will know that ol’ Byron Ferrari has a fondness for glamorous female backing singers, so it was perhaps unsurprising that he recruited the attractive tall blonde Ladly to sing backing vocals on Roxy’s Avalon album. Ladly was allowed a more involved role for her next musical venture. In 1982 The Associates were probably still best known for releasing a cover of David Bowie’s ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ before Bowie had the chance to release it himself. Their combination of erratic synth sounds, Alan Rankine’s jagged post-punk guitar and Billy Mackenzie’s dramatic, demi-operatic vocals was not yet fully realised. This was about to change. That year Martha Ladly became an auxiliary member of the group, providing keyboards and luscious backing vocals to supplement Mackenzie’s virtuoso vocal performances. They ran into a purple patch of hit singles, and in May 1982 released their Magnus Opus, Sulk. Ladly had managed to join a band at the peak of their powers; this was the Associates golden era. The mark left by Martha Ladly on the Associates probably outweighed her actual contribution to their musical cannon, due in part to the timing of her tenure with the group, but also to her contribution to the band’s visual aesthetic. Success brought heightened TV exposure, including the group’s three Top of the Pops appearances. Ladly was no shrinking violet, her striking appearance and stage presence provided a perfect counterweight to the enigmatic Mackenzie’s theatrical performances and saw her occupy much camera time.

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The Associates - 18 Carat Love Affair

After the release of Sulk Ladly took time to release another solo single. As whimsical as her previous solo outing, this single was far less organic in sound, clearly betraying the synthetic influence of the bands and musicians she had recently been working with. ‘Light Years From Love’ is a lost synthpop classic, a sprightly tale of ‘falling in love with a star tonight’, with suitably sugary lyrics. Ladly again made use of her contacts and drafted in Peter Hook of New Order to provide a signature high-note, chorus drenched bass line for the track. The promo video saw Ladly still unafraid to flaunt her looks, featuring as it does Martha in a swimsuit doing the backstroke, Martha in a swimsuit sunbathing, and Martha in a swimsuit pointlessly looking through telescope in bright daylight.

1983 represented the high water mark for Ladly. ‘Light Years From Love’ was to be her final solo release. That year also saw Alan Rankine depart from the Associates. Sadly the band would never reach the heights of Sulk again. Mackenzie would retain the group’s name and carry on recording sporadically whilst continuing to work with Martha, but his glory days were sadly over. By 1986 Ladly too had parted company with the Associates and also with Peter Saville. She decided to take a turn toward the mainstream and joined Robert Palmer’s baking band, again perhaps unsurprisingly given his fondness for attractive female backing ‘bands’. Palmer was at this point riding high on the back of the success of ‘Addicted To Love’, but for Ladly this to be the end of her live music career. Her next major collaboration would be with Peter Gabriele as part of his innovative Real World Multimedia initiative. In 1994 she provided the artwork for Gabriel’s Secret World Live album and received a Grammy nomination for her efforts. With its colour coded tabbing, the design is clearly lifted from Power Corruption and Lies era New Order artwork - a final homage to her former beau.

As the nineties drew to an end, so did Ladly’s tenure in the UK. By this point many of her former friends and cohorts’ stars were on the wain; Factory Records had gone bust, Peter Saville had exchanged creativity for Photoshop, Andy McCluskey of OMD had worryingly formed Atomic Kitten and New Order weren’t speaking to each other anymore. Most tragically however, Billy MacKenzie had committed suicide in 1997 after a long battle with depression. In 2001 Ladly returned to Canada to attain further academic qualifications. Her story has now gone full circle and today she finds herself back where it all began, the Ontario College of Art, where she teaches as Professor of Interactive Communication.

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Robert Palmer - Addicted to Love (Live)