Lætitia Sadier + Emel Mathlouthi + Un Blonde

As a member of Stereolab, Lætitia Sadier helped to pioneer a certain strain of indie pop from the 1990s into the aughts. Championing analog synthesizers during an era when fetishism for all things digital was on the rise, the British group took cues from Krautrock, lounge music, psychedelic rock and minimalism, still managing to be one of the more progressive bands of their time. Starting out as an underground phenomenon, it wasn’t long before one could hear their music in shopping malls, movies and tv shows. This surely had much to do with Sadier’s cool, instantly recognizable voice, which recalled French pop singers of the 1960s. There was an amusing irony that she was cooing anti-consumerist messages and Marxist ideology, themes she has retained in her solo work. (She was born in Paris during May, 1968, after all.) Sadier has also carried much of Stereolab’s sound into her three solo albums, and her voice is such a focal point it’s often overlooked that she is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, playing guitar, keyboards, percussion and trombone.

Emel Mathlouthi

Prominent Tunisian singer/songwriter Emel, returns with her second album Ensen. Emel’s first album, Kelmti Horra (My Word is Free), introduced her groundbreaking marriage of sounds steeped in Tunisia and electronic beats. On Ensen, she’s merged to a style that’s even more uniquely her own, combining organic and electronic sounds to produce a record that will appeal to any lover of innovative and heartfelt music.

“You hear a person refusing to compromise, a searing vision founded on real risks and the necessity of truth.”
– Pitchfork

“It’s the astonishing range and sensuousness of Mathlouthi’s voice that is most compelling. There are swoops and growls reminiscent of Bjork and even traces of her goth past as she picks out minimal, reverberant lines on electric guitar which make you wonder if she’s also been listening to the xx.”
– The Guardian

“Enthralling!”
– The New York Times

Un Blonde

Montreal’s Un Blonde came to be known for his manic post-punk on albums like 2014’s Tenet, but what always helped separate Jean-Sebastien Audet from other angular Canadian groups like Women is his genre-defying ear for melody. His latest record, 2016’s Good Will Come To You was something like if D’Angelo holed up near a Montreal pier and demoed an acoustic spiritual about staying resolute in the face of overwhelming odds.