Over the course of her career, spanning three-plus decades, Lætitia Sadier has never shied away from the hard topics, or stopped advocating for the possibility of self-determination and emancipation in the face of the powers that be, conscious or unconscious. This is an essential part of the foundation she co-built with Stereolab, showcasing her spiritual, scientific, and sociopolitical inquiries. She’s continued this process with Monade and under her own name and as a writer/singer/musician whose every album acts as a report on her journey of the self through time, space, and the collective.
On Rooting For Love, the report is set alight by the heat of a turbulent world, collapsing institutions, and Lætitia’s fully engaged process of expression as well as orchestration. The opening number, “Who + What” elucidates the central issue of the album: a call for a collective striving for Gnosis — an inquisitive outlook that will lend clues to the traumatized civilizations of Earth, allowing us to evolve away from millennia of alienation and suffering and towards the achievability of healing. The musical arrangements help to embody the layers of the issue, as with “Who + What”’s combination of organ, synths, guitar, bass, trombone, drum programming, vibraphone and zither, all working along intricate paths of chord and tempo changes. Leading from the inside is the implacable presence of Lætitia Sadier, herself interacting with a vocal assembly of men and women billed as The Choir. The regular reappearance of The Choir throughout Rooting For Love is a reminder of this music being one of a people in critical mass, in addition to an evolution that continues to deepen the rich harmonic fields in which Lætitia plays.
Past wounds are addressed again and again in the libretto, as the music provides a transformational balm to aid the healing process. The melodic funk of bassist Xavi Muñoz leads a Chic-adjacent slink to the occasional dance floor vibes and no-wave rockouts, while Hannes Plattemier and Emma Mario take turns in mixing the tracks and informing the far reaches of the material, with vibes, additional drum programming and synths alongside a talented cast of players and singers from Lætita’s Source Ensemble and beyond.
Whether drawing inspiration from Zen Shiastu training, or the lyrics of Véronique Vincent, (lyricist and singer for Aksak Maboul, and once upon a time, lead singer of the French Honeymoon Killers), Lætitia faces the truth without flinching. The shadows, whatever stuff they are made of — individual and collective, present and ancestral — need to be recognized and acknowledged, because the more we heal within ourselves, the more undivided we become in the face of looming Neofascist/ Neoliberal narratives polluting the inner and outer landscapes. As with the cover image of the winter tree mirrored by the word patterns of Rooting For Love, Lætitia maintains that how we heal the world that’s coming, and what we make of it, will be a co-creation. The quality of our imagination, the orientation we give our thoughts and the capacity to bring love to ourselves and the world are a first step.
Alongside her collaboration with Modern Cosmology, last year’s incredible What Will You Grow Now?, as well as her continued tours with a reformed Stereolab, Rooting For Love finds Lætitia back in the world, once again urging all our grounded inner alignment and heart power to make us better equipped for creating what’s to come.
