Conventional wisdom says that if you go out of your way to establish a side project, it should sound different enough from your main gig to actually justify its own existence. It's one thing to recommend Monade on the basis that you'll probably like them if you like Stereolab, given the pivotal involvement of singer/lyricist Laetitia Sadier. But after listening to Monade's 2005 album , it gets a bit perplexing when you hear how much a band containing precisely one member of Stereolab sounds so much like their parent group, right down to the motorik beats and the way the guitars and electric pianos create that familiar harmonic drone.