LAETITIA SADIER plays the Drake Underground on September 18. See listing. Rating: NNNN
Throughout Laetitia Sadier’s career with Stereolab, she’s made an art of pronouncing each word as individual syllables, forcing us to pay attention or just accept her voice as an instrument providing counterbalance to the Moogs and guitars bubbling up around it.
Nothing’s changed on her second solo album, including the fact that she still sings with stinging precision about politics and the state of the world, in both English and her native French. Musically, songs are altogether pleasant, ranging from languid to downright danceable, with undercurrents of the German art pop that influenced much of the ‘Lab’s sound.
But the lyrics show Sadier’s as pissed off as any crust punk. If there’s any doubt of her thoughts about the G20, the economic collapse at the hand of the banks and corrupt government in general, she makes it plain when she trills, “We want a real democracy.”
Top track: Auscultation To The Nation