Pitchfork Forkcast: New Music: Monade: "Regarde" [MP3/Stream]

New Music: Monade: "Regarde" [MP3/Stream]

First, an apology. If, on St. Patrick's Day two years ago, your Stereolab showgoing experience at New York's Town Hall was rudely disrupted by a beer-stinking asshole talking loudly to the really tall guy sitting next to him, then I might be that asshole. I'm sorry. You're right: We should've gone to see the Pogues.

Even as Stereolab's latest full-length, 2006's Fab Four Suture, found the veteran UK band slipping a bit too comfortably into the mold their fans had come to expect from them, singer Lætitia Sadier was busy releasing albums with side project Monade-- which eventually grew into a proper band in its own right. "Regarde", from Monade's upcoming third full-length Monstre Cosmic, sets Sadier's purring French-language vocals within an intricate, stereo-split clockwork of pinched electric guitars, burbling bass, and what sounds like French horn-- Gallic finery fit for not just Stereolab fans, but for aficionados of Air, Charlotte Gainsbourg, or chanson-fancier Beirut, as well. The song cuts to half-speed halfway through, gets splashed with cymbals and silhouetted by ascending strings, and then jerks back to the main theme with renewed urgency. Still probably not St. Patrick's Day music, but it'd sound equally good on Valentine's Day or Halloween. (You can hear another Monstre Cosmic track, "Elle Topo", at Monade's MySpace.)