Steering The Elephant From The Room 'Out To Pasture'

Laetitia Sadier can't wait to return to Australia. Her upcoming tour, with her new outfit Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble, will mark the first time she's been here since Stereolab, the iconic indie outfit she fronted for two decades, played Laneway Festival in 2009. It'll also offer an opportunity to leave London with winter looming and the political situation dire.

"It's a dark time, a difficult time," says Sadier, 49, of life in Britain in 2017. The UK feels "depressed" post-Brexit, she thinks, its population suffering from both austerity measures and "low morale". Talking about politics is something Sadier does "too much" in conversation and plenty in her lyrics. She's done so ever since Stereolab's 1994 single Ping Pong opened with the lyrics, "It's alright 'cause the historical pattern has shown/How the economical cycle tends to revolve/In a round of decades...," and continues to do so on the recently released debut LP for Laetitia Sadier Source Ensemble, Find Me Finding You.

"I've always done that," Sadier offers. "Because I feel that there is always a massive gap. It's like there's an elephant in the room that no one ever talks about. So, I've always thought: 'I want to talk about this elephant. I find it very interesting.' It's like: How can we steer this elephant? Are we always going to be crushed by it? Or can we get it to exit the room, maybe it can just go in the field and we can reclaim our living space?"

Fittingly, Sadier gets plenty passionate when talking about the political landscape. "We can't just hand over our vote every five years and call it democracy. That's not democracy. We have to change what we think of as democracy," she says. "It's normal that we're getting screwed by the Theresa Mays and Trumps and Macrons and whomever you have in Australia. It's normal. What's not normal is that we're not taking action. We are the force. We have the power, we've just relinquished it. We need to reclaim it. Power to the people!"

The opening song on Find Me Finding You - and the Source Ensemble's first-ever single - is called Undying Love For Humanity and finds her chanting, "Power to the people!" Although the LP marks the first outing for her 'new' band, the Source Ensemble is largely made up of musicians who played on Sadier's solo albums (2010's The Trip, 2012's Silencio, 2014's Something Shines) and is keeping their spirit; even if Sadier hoped to "relinquish control" and "be guided" by the songs.

"There's been no big ruptures or departures," Sadier says. "I've been, all these years, cultivating the same piece of land. But, this time, I felt I was cultivating the sky as well. More spiritual realms. Waiting to be guided. Finding this sense of direction, to me, that's spirituality - that's spirit."