Rooting For Love

Decades after starting her career, Laetitia Sadier can still find fresh perspectives on her music and message. On its surface, Rooting for Love delivers the gorgeous vocals, heady concepts, and inventive sonics expected from her albums, and like 2017s Find Me Finding You, it offers a glimpse of the world she wants to bring into being. However, during the seven years between that album and Rooting for Love, society moved even farther away from her ideals, something thats reflected in the urgency Sadier brings to these love songs to humanitys potential for good. Sometimes, that urgency boils over into frustration: "You need a good slap," she sings on "Dont Forget Youre Mine," possibly the most conversational, and confrontational, song shes ever written. On "Cloud 6," shes the universe delivering a blunt reminder that life is for living ("Im not f*cking around"). The commanding richness of Sadiers voice matches the surprising frankness of Rooting for Loves songwriting, particularly when shes backed by the group of male and female vocalists known as the Choir. Majestic call-and-response vocals suggest the strength needed to break free of received wisdom and move towards self-knowledge on "Who + What," one of several moments where the album feels more like experiencing a rite than a set of songs. Though Sadiers message is pressing, the way she expresses it is never simplistic; in fact, Rooting for Love is some of the most overtly experimental music shes made since Stereolabs hiatus. Shades of that bands explorative peak in the late 90s and early 2000s can be heard within "Proteiformunite"s explosion of funk, jazz, and psych-rock and "New Moon"s spacious drift, but even the more diffuse moments are grounded by the same conviction Sadier brings to more immediate tracks like "Une Autre Attente" and "The Dash." At its best, the album is a dynamic continuation of Sadiers legacy of pop music that embraces complex philosophical issues and states of being, as on "The Inner Smile," a deeply trippy guided meditation that urges listeners to find connection and gratitude on a cosmic and cellular level. Though the communion and self-awareness Sadier envisions seemed almost impossible at the time of Rooting for Loves release, thats precisely why the album feels so vital. ~ Heather Phares