Cate Le Bon | ||
| Allmusic Biography : Welsh songwriter Cate Le Bons distinctive voice and smart arrangements manifested as a dark, looming take on psychedelic pop over the course of multiple critically acclaimed solo albums, side projects, and production for others. Though earlier albums had hints of a folk influence, her spindly guitar leads often stole the show, tending toward more distorted and demented forms. Released in 2013, Mug Museum came after a move to Los Angeles, and boasted some of Le Bons clearest, most engaging songcraft, as well as a guest appearance from Perfume Genius. Along with her active solo career, Le Bon began collaborating with fellow warped pop purveyor Tim Presley in a side project called DRINKS, as well as taking a producer role for indie royalty like Eleanor Friedberger and Deerhunter. Cate Le Bon grew up in Carmarthenshire, a rural town in West Wales. In 2007, she opened for Super Furry Animals Gruff Rhys, with whom she occasionally collaborated, during a tour of the U.K. That same year, she self-released her first single, "No One Can Drag Me Down"/"Disappear," and recorded an album, Pet Deaths, which was shelved. Edrych yn Llygaid Ceffyl Benthyg, a Welsh-language EP, was issued on Peski in 2008, the same year she contributed vocals to "I Lust U," a song from Rhys and Bryan Hollons Neon Neon album Stainless Style. Me Oh My, Le Bons first properly released full-length, came out on Rhys Irony Bored label in 2009 and was hotly tipped by Uncut magazine. Her sophomore release, Cyrk, which paired the spooky, folk-tinged timbre of Nico with the experimental, Nuggets-meets-Krautrock attack of Os Mutantes and Faust, arrived in early 2012. In 2013, Le Bons well-received third album, Mug Museum, saw her relocating to Los Angeles, and featured a guest appearance from Perfume Genius on the track "I Think I Knew." Her move to the States coincided with an uptick in more high-profile collaborations. Not long after her move, Le Bon contributed to new recordings by Kevin Morby, Manic Street Preachers, and Willis Earl Beal as well as forming the new group DRINKS with White Fence mastermind Tim Presley. DRINKS released their debut, Hermits on Holiday, in 2015. Le Bons fourth album, Crab Day, arrived in early 2016, and she took a five-piece band on an extensive tour in support of the record. A four-song EP, Rock Pool, followed the next year, and in the spring of 2018 the second DRINKS album, Hippo Lite, arrived. Along with steady recording of her own work, Le Bon continued collaboration and production work, acting as producer for new solo music for Alex Dingley, H. Hawkline, and Josiah Steinbrick, remixing Eleanor Friedbergers 2018 track "Are We Good?," and working extensively with Deerhunter on their seventh studio album, Why Hasnt Everything Already Disappeared?, released in January 2019. A new volume of Le Bons solo music followed not far behind with fifth album Reward, released in May 2019. The LP was recorded with a cast of familiar collaborators, including drummer Stella Mozgawa from Warpaint and guitarists Josh Klinghoffer and Huw Evans. The album marked a turn towards more personal subject matter than Le Bons often opaque earlier material. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 7 Title: Me Oh My Released: 2009-10-12 Tracks: 10 Duration: 35:57 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Me Oh My (03:47) 2 Sad Sad Feet (03:35) 3 Shoeing the Bones (03:39) 4 Hollow Trees House Hounds (03:33) 5 Its Not the End (03:23) 6 Terror of the Man (04:38) 7 Eyes So Bright (04:10) 8 Digging Song (03:02) 9 Burn Until the End (03:30) 10 Out to Sea (02:36) |
| Me Oh My : Allmusic album Review : The Welsh alt-singer/songwriters debut full-length release, Me Oh My, introduces Cate Le Bons fragile, sometimes ominous vocal delivery and yearning, unsettling songwriting style. The album, with varied instrumentation ranging from electric guitars, synths, and drums to solo acoustic guitar with vocal harmony, is alluring but far from sweet, at least as a whole, with leaping melodies, sharp synth tones, and lyrics like "I dig all night with tired eyes/The dogs are dead and Im getting older…" (from "Digging Song"). If "creepy but vibrant psych-folk" sounds intriguing, this one shouldnt be missed. | ||
 | Album: 2 of 7 Title: Cyrk Released: 2012-01-17 Tracks: 10 Duration: 35:06 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Falcon Eyed (02:48) 2 Puts Me to Work (03:29) 3 CYRK (03:05) 4 Julia (03:23) 5 Greta (03:36) 6 Fold the Cloth (05:39) 7 The Man I Wanted (03:08) 8 Through the Mill (03:07) 9 Ploughing Out, Part 1 (03:52) 10 Ploughing Out, Part 2 (02:59) |
| Cyrk : Allmusic album Review : The sophomore outing from Welsh singer/songwriter Cate Le Bon pairs the spooky timbre of Nico and the meandering psych rock affectations of Syd Barrett with the experimental Nuggets-meets-Krautrock attack of Faust and Os Mutantes. Jangly retro-pop gems like "Puts Me to Work," "Falcon Eyed," and "Fold the Cloth," the latter of which sounds like a lost early-90s Stereolab classic, keep things moving along at a brisk pace, while more exploratory pieces such as "Ploughing Out" and the neatly fractured title cut give listeners a little more to chew on. While each track on Cyrk brings to mind somebody else (Velvet Underground, "Genesis Hall"-era Fairport Convention, Comus, Spacemen 3), Le Bon somehow manages to make it all feel surprising natural, allowing the oddness of the songs, all of which are built upon the foundation of a simple, melodic hook, then allowed enough pasture to graze indefinitely, to evolve in a way that never seems contrived, despite their obvious influences. | ||
 | Album: 3 of 7 Title: Cyrk II Released: 2012-08-20 Tracks: 5 Duration: 00:00 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 What Is Worse (?) 2 The Eiggy Sea (?) 3 That Moon (?) 4 Seaside, Low Tide (?) 5 January (?) |
 | Album: 4 of 7 Title: Mug Museum Released: 2013-11-11 Tracks: 10 Duration: 42:04 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 I Can’t Help You (04:01) 2 Are You With Me Now? (04:21) 3 Duke (03:49) 4 No God (04:39) 5 I Think I Knew (04:49) 6 Wild (03:28) 7 Sisters (04:05) 8 Mirror Me (03:48) 9 Cuckoo Through the Walls (05:20) 10 Mug Museum (03:44) |
| Mug Museum : Allmusic album Review : 2012’s Cyrk saw enigmatic Welsh pop purveyor Cate Le Bon channeling the ghosts of Nico, Syd Barrett, and Sandy Denny, offering up an austere set of angular psych-folk confections that sounded like they arrived via a Harvest Records time capsule. Mug Museum, Le Bons third long-player, was recorded in the singer/songwriter’s newly adopted Los Angeles, but unlike her recently transplanted U.K. folk contemporary Laura Marling, who took to California’s breezy bacchanalia like a true Manson devotee, Le Bon makes the west coast bend to her will, allowing just enough sun to seep in to keep things mellow, while retaining the moor-bound, overcast patina of her Welsh homeland. The front half of Mug Museum is sublime, a heady mix of clever, Tom Verlaine-inspired guitar lines, sneaky, circuitous melodies, and poetic yet evasive lyrics that culminate into a rich stew of psych-pop goodness. Songs like the propulsive opener "I Can’t Help You," with its snappy, Stereolab-primed backbeat and tonal uniformity, the loose and affable "Are You with Me Now?," and the lovely "I Think I Knew," the latter a lush and moving duet with Seattle-based singer/songwriter (and fellow pop outcast) Mike Hadreas (Perfume Genius), find Le Bon firmly in her comfort zone, even as she pokes and prods around its edges, but Mug Museum, with the exception of the gutsy, proto-punk boardwalk rocker "Sisters" loses a little steam near the end, relying too often on dissonant quirks and meandering VU-style free-jams. It’s not Cyrk III (Le Bon issued an EP of songs called Cyrk II shortly after the release of its precursor), but Mug Museum will delight anybody with ears who enjoyed her previous outing, and while it may lack some of the focus of its predecessor, it retains every bit of its oddball charm. | ||
 | Album: 5 of 7 Title: Crab Day Released: 2016-04-15 Tracks: 10 Duration: 36:42 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Crab Day (03:51) 2 Love Is Not Love (03:04) 3 Wonderful (02:38) 4 Find Me (02:53) 5 I’m a Dirty Attic (03:08) 6 I Was Born on the Wrong Day (02:20) 7 We Might Revolve (03:49) 8 Yellow Blinds, Cream Shadows (04:05) 9 How Do You Know? (03:27) 10 What’s Not Mine (07:27) |
| Crab Day : Allmusic album Review : The fourth full-length outing from the singular Welsh pop confectioner, Crab Day is as peculiar and capricious as anything Cate Le Bon has done thus far, which is saying that it sounds a great deal like her three previous long players. For fans of her particular brand of knotty, carnivalesque art-pop, which sounds like an amalgam of Os Mutantes, Nico, Stereolab, Syd Barrett, and Shirley Collins, Crab Day will be a delight. Le Bons clever and often abstract turns of both melody and phrase are abundant throughout, and the addition of horns, woodwinds, and the occasional marimba to the mix evoke even stranger hues than usual -- trading in the deep greens and grays of her homeland for the terminally pleasant climate of Los Angeles may have had some influence on the album, but Crab Day is a largely canonical affair, despite all of the extra window dressing. The crustacean-minded title cut -- a Le Bon-conjured surrogate for April Fools Day -- wastes little time in setting the mood, rolling out an insistent, martial beat thats peppered with angular, Krautrock guitars, adding extra bite to Le Bons pithy refrain of "It doesnt pay to sing your songs." Elsewhere, the punk-addled "Wonderful" suggests what the Pixies may have sounded like had they grown up in Cardiff instead of Boston, and the heady, Kinks-ian "I Am an Attic" goes dark without losing any of the trickster twinkle that made the songs before it more madcap than maudlin. In fact, only the elliptical -- and quite beautiful -- "Love Not Love" feels rooted in anything worldly, wistfully musing "Love is not love when its a coat hanger, a borrowed line or passenger." Its as close as Le Bon allows herself to get to the world outside of the amusement park grounds, and in its longing, the listener feels connected, if only for a few moments, before the barker begins anew and the midway lights come back on. | ||
 | Album: 6 of 7 Title: Rock Pool Released: 2017-01-27 Tracks: 4 Duration: 14:06 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify AlbumCover | 1 Aside From Growing Old (03:48) 2 Rock Pool (03:12) 3 Perfume Days (04:03) 4 I Just Wanna Be Good (03:01) |
 | Album: 7 of 7 Title: Reward Released: 2019-05-24 Tracks: 10 Duration: 42:43 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Miami (05:17) 2 Daylight Matters (04:18) 3 Home to You (05:27) 4 Mother’s Mother’s Magazines (04:17) 5 Here It Comes Again (03:24) 6 Sad Nudes (03:08) 7 The Light (04:51) 8 Magnificent Gestures (05:00) 9 You Don’t Love Me (03:06) 10 Meet the Man (03:55) |