Hailing from Cardiff, Wales,
Cate Le Bon writes soulful songs equal parts haunting, catchy, and angelic. Reportedly turned introspective by a tragic series of pet deaths in her youth, Cate penned a batch of tongue-in-cheek while funereal tunes for her recent debut full-length
Me Oh My.
Cate got her start playing gigs around the UK and released a Welsh language EP in 2008, then had her first crack at recording a full length album. When that effort lost direction she toured with
Neon Neon for a year, and during a break from the road recorded
Me Oh My. Sometimes dripping with self-aware irony, sometimes earnest simplicity,
Me Oh My stands out among the creations of modern songstresses with a sound that channels The Velvet Underground's steady somber psychedelia mixed with Feist's mellow cheer and clear vocals, and brings instrumental backing from both eras&mdash the acoustic strumming on "Sad Sad Feet" feels either contemporary or timeless, while the electric guitar on "Hollow Trees House Hounds" unquestionably carries us back to the sixties.
The album feels like a musical investigation of some not-quite-graspable personal fascination, which keeps it distinctive and makes you want to find your way into Cate Le Bon's colorfully peculiar, slightly sinister world-- but you'd better watch out for monsters if this
video is any indication of what she sees.-
selden paterson
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MP3: "Hollow Trees House Hounds"
Cate Le Bon on Myspace