Lætitia Sadier
Something Shines
23 September 2014
4 stars out of 5
French singer and multi-instrumentalist Lætitia Sadier, most
well known as co-founder and leader of one of the very best bands of the ‘90s,
Stereolab, has just released her third solo LP, Something Shines. Even though Sadier worked with seemingly hundreds
of different musicians, none of whom had been collaborators in her former band,
Something Shines sounds pretty much
exactly like a Stereolab album. It’s got all of the distinctive picked bass
sound, kraut rock rhythms, and ethereal horn flourishes of Emperor Tomato Ketchup or Dots
and Loops, and it isn’t remotely ashamed of this fact.
One of Sadier’s trademarks has always been her lyrics,
infused with the ideas of the giants of the Continental school of philosophy—Lyotard,
Debord, Deleuze, Derrida, Foucault, Baudrillard, etc. The personal,
confessional song has never been of interest to Sadier; rather, she seeks the
profound, the life-changing, the society-changing. Example: “Do the rich need
the poor to be rich? Would there be poverty if there weren’t any rich? Is it in
the interest of the rich to eradicate poverty?” (from “Oscuridad”). Sadier’s
grand statements haven’t been confined historically to her lyrics—part of what made
Stereolab special was their delight in smashing apart traditional rock assumptions.
In their music was a deconstruction of rock tropes that was a thrilling point
of origin for the post-rock genre, and a welcome counterpoint to the
contemporary trad-rock idiocy of bands like Oasis.
But then Stereolab appeared to fall into a musical rut, and
to actually enjoy being there. Something
Shines is a continuation of that rut, though by now it’s probably clear to
most that what some people call a rut is what other people consider to be a very
exciting place. Sadier’s music is anything but stale: she continues to
innovate, only within a narrower set of boundaries. This record shows that
Sadier is still vital even at age 46, showing no signs of losing her edge or
her creative spark.
reviewed by Richard Krueger
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