Their second album, A Few Steps More (2005), marks a more cohesive stage in the band's development. There is now a regular lineup, and it was recorded using studio equipment. The album has been roundly praised and criticised for its superficial resemblance to the sound of Stereolab, but several reviews have commented more on the harmonic structure of the album, which almost seems to blend symphonically at times. Asked about on the album's themes in an interview for Eye Weekly, Sadier commented: "I was trying to write to the individual and the capacity to listen to one's desires. Also, I tackled the idea of becoming. I think that's quite an important notion: that things should be allowed to become. I became a singer and it took me years and I want Monade to have a chance to become a band."
The name "Monade" was taken from Cornelius Castoriadis' concept of the "monade psychique" (psychical monad), which was the term Castoriadis used to describe the undifferentiated infantile psyche, before its shattering into the ego, super-ego, and id through the process of socialization. Laetitia Sadier has stated that the name has a double meaning - the word "monade" is from the root word "mono-" (meaning "one") and etymologically related to the sound recording term "mono", which stands in contrast to stereo, and therefore is a reference to Monade as a solo side project to Stereolab. The title of Monade's first album pays tribute to a libertarian Marxist political group founded by Castoriadis, Socialisme ou Barbarie.
In March 2008, a new Monade album was released, without any promotion, called Monstre Cosmic.
On September 19th 2009 at The BirdCage in London, it was announced that it was Laetitia's last performance under the name Monade. Laetitia played a selection of new solo songs.
From Wikipedia
