La Roux

La Roux is an English electro-pop duet constituted by the singer and instrumentalist Eleanor Jackson, also known as Ellie, together with co-author and co-producer Ben Langmaid. The members of this formation admit that their partnership is rather Ellie’s solo project supported by Langmaid than a real duet. Eleanor Jackson was born in the family of the actress Trudie Goodwin who rose to prominence after having a part in the TV series The Bill. Langmain is a veteran of the British music stage. Throughout the nineties, he used to work heavily with electronic music and for a while was cooperating with a Faithless participant, Rollo Armstrong. Having heard the melodies that Ellie could pen and perform, he decided to abandon all his projects and dedicate himself to working with Jackson in a duet. When Ellie once found a book of child names in a bin she came across the French name La Roux meaning a read-haired one. Since then she knew that this was the best possible name for their band. When they started, the musicians focused on playing acoustic instruments and writing ballads mostly. However, massive experimenting led them to doing electronic dance music invented and developed by such stars like Eurythmics, Depeche Mode, and The Human League.

The duet entered the studio in 2008 and released the debut single, Quicksand, in November in association with the little French label Kitsune Music. There was nor further partnership between La Roux and this company. Early in 2009, they signed a contract with Polydor for the release of the debut long player. In March 2009, Polydor issued the second single by La Roux, titled as In For The Kill. The composition produced an immense effect of a sensation causing several dance music producers make their own remixes of this song. In For The Kill started eleventh in the British charts and eventually came to the second place. In the spring of 2009, La Roux went on a tour across the Great Britain opening the performances of Lily Allen. Soon after that, BBC organized the massive Sound of 2009 poll to define the public opinion on the year’s best performers. La Roux occupied the fifth position in the final results of the research. The leading British periodical The Guardian also contributed much to the promotion of the beginning duet.

There is no doubt that the main public person of La Roux is Jackson in her person. Among the figures that had the biggest impact on the formation of her personality, she named David Bowie, Anny Lennox, Prince and actress Molly Ringwald. Eleanor signed her music recording contract wearing a T-shirt with an extremely obscene phrase. She also designs the clothing line she established with her friend. According to her own words, Jackson is irritated by the fact that the overwhelming majority follows one and the same fashion tendencies. The participation of La Roux in Samsung NME Radar Tour as the headliner made both critics and listeners anticipate the soon release of their self-titled debut long player even with a greater desire. A very interesting album Sidetracked, including the variety of interpretations of Heaven 17, Tears For Fears, Japan and other performers saw the light in 2010. Sidetracked became some sort of a guide to the compositions that influenced and determined the development of La Roux.