Rooting For Love

Album review

It's been nearly two and a half years since Lætitia Sadier teased the promise of a new album via the single "New Moon," and Rooting for Love was worth the wait. Performed in both French and English, the fifth solo album from the Stereolab frontwoman incorporates her familiar touchstones—echoes of Esquivel's winking flare, Bacharach's emotional pull, Steve Reich's deceptive simplicity. But there is also a sense of liberation on the jazzy "Who + What," with Saider's chanteuse delivery fluidly slip-sliding over and across Xavi Muñoz's mesmerizing bass. There's a neat trick where her vocals start out gauzy, then sonically pierce the veil—coming through clean and clear—and then dart behind a siren-like fuzz, all with vibraphone and zither. She is backed by a collective of voices (billed as The Choir) that lends a '60s naivete to the slightly ominous music. The universal focus here is on moving, as a civilization, away from alienation; Sadier has said that "New Moon" is about "feeling the emotions of all of that has stricken or afflicted us ... as a way to evolve"—a human antidote to the human-made turmoil of the modern world. If there is indeed healing through music, then turn up "Une Autre Attente," a Chic-inspired dance-floor mood propelled by shaker syncopation and spiked with flashes of no-wave angularity. "Protéïformunite" begins in a state of languor before exploding in a funky outburst—it's appealingly aggressive, like a concentrated espresso jolt. Juiced by a woodwind lilt, "Panser L'inacceptable" plays with Pet Sounds-era Brian WIlson melancholy, and "Cloud 6" drifts into light drone. As always, Sadier's voice is a balmy marvel of gravitas: so smooth yet engineered with a clarion sharpness that can cut through everything else. "Don't Forget You're Mine" pushes the bright upper end of her register, as Munoz's bass and some bending-willow strings ground the jangle pop. "The Inner Smile" captures the Nico-depth quality you can sometimes hear in Sadier's voice, then lifts the ambience with flirtatious flute and disco sass. When she voices self-love and gratitude—"Smile and thank all the cells of your body ... Feel your organs smiling back at you"—in a spoken-word part set to skronk, it's like a microdose trip back to the early '70s. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz