Laetitia Sadier is one of the most distinctive voices in all of popular music. Two years after The Trip, her first album under her own name, and a deliberate step away from Stereolab, comes Silencio. With Moog, oscillators, krautrock and bossa nova rhythms, Tim Gane on guitar, and Sadier's confident, alluring voice, this is familiar and beloved territory.
Silencio is the closest thing to a new Stereolab record. Not that Sadier has abandoned the looser structures which worked well for The Trip; wherein she expressed some of her feelings about the death of her sister. Indeed, she returns to that loss on the heartfelt and ethereal "Silent Spot" However, the aforementioned elements, along with the pacing of certain of these new tracks, as well as the setting of socialist economic and political analysis against light, hypnotic, retro-futurist beats is a good reminder of Stereolab's persuasive guile.
"The Rules of The Game" starts the record slowly, as if depicting someone gradually waking in a lonely but familiar apartment. Yet there is a hint of menace which is made absolutely clear with the lines: "The ruling class neglects again responsibility over indulged children/Drawn to cruel games, pointless pleasures, impulsive reflexes–a group of assassins." This theme is similar to the roots of the heartless, seething, psychotic rage of the bullying proto-fascist in Robert Musil's 1906 novel Young Torless and, probably, also takes inspiration from Jean Renoir's classic 1939 movie La Règle Du Jeu. It also speeds up in a way that will please Stereolab fans.
By contrast, the hints at sexual politics in "Lightning Thunderbolt" come across as mere playful jabs. The uptempo examination of The Body Economic that is "Auscultation to the Nation" is, of course, jangly and light, as Sadier lashes the G20 and the "too big to fail" houses of international finance. The title also has me wishing for a future collaboration with Helen Gillet, who often performs live with cello and stethoscope. That tool of medical examination is one of several elements which show the core theme of this album: the means by which to reveal inner or hidden truth.
There are some clues and perhaps some red herrings, but am reminded that in Lynch's Mulholland Drive the Club Silencio was the place where trickery was openly acknowledged, even as it continued to be perpetrated. Similarly, the final track has Sadier in a French church—her voice double-tracked whispering in English and speaking in French with a layer of reverb—inviting us to enjoy the truth by listening to the silence. Of course, as with Cage's "4'33"" the remainder of the track is far from silent. I remember that Stereolab had a marvelous track called "John Cage Bubblegum".
It is common for people to claim—of voices they love—that they would be happy to hear so-and-so sing the phone book. Her music may now be less of a seamless, stylized, vision of the future set in a golden age of design, fashion, and travel, and I do not find her political lyrics to be at all dull, but Laetitia Sadier's voice still meets the "phone book" standard.
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