Lætitia Sadier (born 6 May 1968), also known as Seaya Sadier, is a French musician best known as a founding member of the London-based
avant-pop band
Stereolab
Stereolab are an English people, Anglo-French avant-pop band formed in London in 1990. Led by the songwriting team of Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier, the group's sound incorporates repetitive motorik beats with the use of vintage electronic keybo ...
. She was born in the east of Paris and spent time in the US as a child.
In 1996, while Stereolab was still active, she formed the side project
Monade. In 2009 – the same year Stereolab became inactive – she ended the Monade project and began to perform solo work under her own name; her current band is known as the Lætitia Sadier Source Ensemble. She has frequently performed guest vocals and collaborations with other artists.
Career
Stereolab
Sadier was working as a nanny when she met
McCarthy guitarist
Tim Gane at one of the band's Paris gigs during the late 1980s. She was disillusioned with the rock scene in France, and soon moved to London to be with Gane and to pursue her career. She contributed vocals to McCarthy's final albums, and when McCarthy broke up in 1990, she and Gane immediately formed
Stereolab
Stereolab are an English people, Anglo-French avant-pop band formed in London in 1990. Led by the songwriting team of Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier, the group's sound incorporates repetitive motorik beats with the use of vintage electronic keybo ...
.
For the first incarnation of the band, they enlisted ex-
Chills
Chills is a feeling of coldness occurring during a high fever, but sometimes is also a common symptom which occurs alone in specific people. It occurs during fever due to the release of cytokines and prostaglandins as part of the inflammatory ...
bassist
Martin Kean, drummer Joe Dilworth and Gina Morris on backing vocals.
In 1993, the band were signed to the American major label
Elektra. They were released from their recording contract in 2004.
Sadier was the main contributor of lyrics, written in both English and French. In 2009, the group went into recording hiatus although they continue sporadically to play together live.
Monade and solo work
In 1996, Sadier formed
Monade with
Pram's Rosie Cuckston. The group released the singles "The Sunrise Telling" and "Witch Hazel/Ode to a Keyring" in 1997. The band's debut album ''Socialisme ou Barbarie: The Bedroom Recordings'' was released on
Duophonic Records
Duophonic Ultra High Frequency Disks Limited (also known as Duophonic Records or Duophonic Super 45s) is a British independent record label formed by English-French rock band Stereolab in 1991. The label has two imprints: Duophonic Ultra High ...
in Europe and
Drag City in the US in 2003. Their second album ''A Few Steps More'' was released on
Too Pure
Too Pure Records was a London-based independent record label formed in 1990 by Richard Roberts and Paul Cox. The label gained prominence after the release of PJ Harvey's debut studio album ''Dry (album), Dry'' in 1992, and subsequently found f ...
in 2004. Monade's follow-up, ''
Monstre Cosmic'', was released in February 2008 on Duophonic. She retired the project in 2009 to perform new songs under her name, and released a solo album titled ''
The Trip'' in September 2010; it was followed by ''
Silencio'' in 2012 and ''
Something Shines'' in 2014. Sadier released the album ''
Find Me Finding You'' in 2017, credited to the Lætitia Sadier Source Ensemble.
Collaborations and other projects
Sadier has contributed vocals to various groups and projects, at times along with the late Stereolab member
Mary Hansen. She and Hansen had contributed vocals to various recordings of
The High Llamas and to the
Tim Gane/
Sean O'Hagan side project Turn On, and has contributed backing vocals to the track "Go Round" on
The Hair and Skin Trading Company's 1993 album ''Over Valence''. Sadier added French backing vocals on the 1994 song "
To the End," from
Blur's ''
Parklife
''Parklife'' is the third studio album by the English rock band Blur, released on 25 April 1994, by Food Records. After moderate sales for their previous album '' Modern Life Is Rubbish'' (1993), ''Parklife'' returned Blur to prominence in ...
'' album. In 1995, she recorded the
Serge Gainsbourg
Serge Gainsbourg (; born Lucien Ginsburg; 2 April 1928 – 2 March 1991) was a French singer-songwriter, actor, composer, and director. Regarded as one of the most important figures in French pop, he was renowned for often provocative rel ...
/
Brigitte Bardot song "
Bonnie and Clyde" with
Luna
Luna commonly refers to:
* Earth's Moon, named "Luna" in Latin, Spanish and other languages
* Luna (goddess)
In Sabine and ancient Roman religion and myth, Luna is the divine embodiment of the Moon (Latin ''Lūna'' ). She is often presented as t ...
. Throughout the years, Sadier has occasionally collaborated with German
electronica
Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...
group
Mouse on Mars. In 1997, Sadier sang on "Schnick Schnack Meltmade" on Mouse on Mars' ''
Autoditacker'' LP, and she and
Mary Hansen contributed vocals to the ''Cache Cœur Naif'' EP. In turn, Mouse on Mars produced tracks on Stereolab's ''
Dots and Loops'' LP.
In 2001, Sadier sang on "Sol y sombra" on Fugu's ''Fugu 1'' LP on
Minty Fresh Records. In 2002, Sadier sang the chorus on "New Wave" from
Common's album ''
Electric Circus''. She sang lead vocals on "Haiku One" from Sigmatropic's 2004 album ''Sixteen Haiku & Other Stories'' which was an album based on the poetry of Greek poet
Giorgos Seferis. In 2007, Sadier wrote songs with Mouse on Mars and toured with them in Italy. They have yet to record the songs for release.
In 2009 the French label Deux Mille released an EP which features Sadier singing with
Toulouse
Toulouse (, ; ; ) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Haute-Garonne department and of the Occitania (administrative region), Occitania region. The city is on the banks of the Garonne, River Garonne, from ...
-based band Momotte.
Sadier wrote and sang the lyrics to the track "Quick Canal" by
Atlas Sound on their album ''
Logos
''Logos'' (, ; ) is a term used in Western philosophy, psychology and rhetoric, as well as religion (notably Logos (Christianity), Christianity); among its connotations is that of a rationality, rational form of discourse that relies on inducti ...
'' (2009). She contributed vocals to "PartyIsntOver/Campfire/Bimmer" on the album
''Wolf'' (2013) by
Tyler, the Creator
Tyler Gregory Okonma (born March 6, 1991), known professionally as Tyler, the Creator, is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, and record producer. He has been cited as an influential figure in alternative hip-hop during the 2010s. Tyler beca ...
, and "Summer Long" on the album ''Alexandre'' (2014) by Brazilian band . She wrote the lyrics and was featured in "La Ballade" on the album ''Something About April II'' (2016) by
Adrian Younge, and sang on the album ''
I'm Willing'' (2016) by
Marker Starling. In 2017, she appeared on the
Deerhoof
Deerhoof is an American musical group formed in San Francisco in 1994. It consists of founding drummer Greg Saunier, bassist and singer Satomi Matsuzaki, and guitarists John Dieterich and Ed Rodriguez. Beginning as an improvised noise punk band ...
song "Come Down Here and Say That" from their album ''
Mountain Moves''. In 2019 she appeared on the
Mercury Rev album ''
Bobbie Gentry's The Delta Sweete Revisited'' where she sang lead vocals on the track ''Mornin' Glory''.
In 2020, Sadier appeared as featured lead singer on two compositions by
Chapman Stick virtuoso
Michael Bernier, released on his third solo full-length release ''The Beach Album''. Together with Jarvis Cocker she released in 2021 on the album ''Tip-Top Chansons d´Ennui'' a cover version of French classic ''Paroles, Paroles'' originally sung by Dalida and Alain Delon. In 2023, she released a full-length album collaboration with , ''What Will You Grow Now?'', issued under the band name Modern Cosmology.
On 13 November 2023, Sadier announced her fifth solo album, ''
Rooting for Love'', with a release date of 23 February 2024 by Drag City. On it she is joined by a vocal ensemble of men and women. The album's central theme, Sadler says, is "a call for
Gnossis" which she describes as "an inquisitive outlook that will lend clue to the traumatised civilisations of earth." It follows a nature-based theme.
Personal life
While she spent most of her formative years in France, Sadier's family travelled extensively, and she lived briefly in the U.S. as a child.
Sadier and
Tim Gane were a couple when they formed Stereolab in 1990 but ended the relationship in 2002.
Together, they have a son named Alex who was born in 1998.
Sadier revealed in an interview with ''
Jacobin
The Society of the Friends of the Constitution (), renamed the Society of the Jacobins, Friends of Freedom and Equality () after 1792 and commonly known as the Jacobin Club () or simply the Jacobins (; ), was the most influential political cl ...
'' that she had
long COVID
Long may refer to:
Measurement
* Long, characteristic of something of great duration
* Long, characteristic of something of great length
* Longitude (abbreviation: long.), a geographic coordinate
* Longa (music), note value in early music mens ...
in March 2020.
Discography
With
Stereolab
Stereolab are an English people, Anglo-French avant-pop band formed in London in 1990. Led by the songwriting team of Tim Gane and Lætitia Sadier, the group's sound incorporates repetitive motorik beats with the use of vintage electronic keybo ...
With Monade
*''Socialisme ou Barbarie (The Bedroom Recordings)'' (
Duophonic
Duophonic sound was a trade name for a type of audio signal processing used by Capitol Records on certain releases and re-releases of mono recordings issued during the 1960s and 1970s. In this process monaural recordings were reprocessed into a ...
, 2003)
*''A Few Steps More'' (
Too Pure
Too Pure Records was a London-based independent record label formed in 1990 by Richard Roberts and Paul Cox. The label gained prominence after the release of PJ Harvey's debut studio album ''Dry (album), Dry'' in 1992, and subsequently found f ...
, 2005)
*''
Monstre Cosmic'' (Too Pure, 2008)
Solo albums
*''
The Trip'' (
Drag City, 2010)
*''
Silencio'' (Drag City, 2012)
*''
Something Shines'' (Drag City, 2014)
*''
Find Me Finding You'' (Drag City, 2017) (as Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble)
*''
Rooting for Love'' (Drag City, 2024)
Solo singles
*''La Piscine – An Invitation by Lætitia Sadier to Keep On Swimming'' (12", Wool, 2011)
*''Dry Fruit'' (cassette, Drag City, 2015)
With Modern Cosmology
*''Summer Long'' EP (
Elefant Records, 2017)
*''What Will You Grow Now'' (Duophonic, 2023)
References
External links
Laetitia Sadier talks about her career and the album, Monstre Cosmic*
ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1L0Uw1BU9s Laetitia Sadier at the 2015 Red Bull Music Academy Lecture in Paris
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sadier, Laetitia
1968 births
Living people
French rock singers
French rock guitarists
French women rock singers
French expatriates in England
Stereolab members
French women in electronic music
French women guitarists
French-language singers
French-language singers of the United Kingdom
21st-century French women singers
English-language singers from France