Album: Cate Le Bon, Me Oh My (Irony Bored)

Andy Gill
Thursday 15 October 2009 19:00 EDT
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

The debut release on Gruff Rhys's Irony Bored label, Me Oh My shows Welsh singer-songwriter Cate Le Bon to be a strikingly different prospect to the recent run of new female singers – closer to wyrd-folkie than soul-diva, but blessed with a unique line in imagery, and a ramshackle innocence to her musical approach that recalls the third Velvet Underground album, if Mo Tucker had sung all the songs.

Or indeed, Nico: there's an austere, uncertain other-worldliness about Le Bon's voice that echoes the late ice queen's, an impression heightened by the occasional moans of wheezing harmonium alongside her guitar. Blackness and night-time feature strongly throughout, as might be expected of someone who apparently only writes in the dark: the album's opening couplet is "I fought the night, and the night fought me/ Knocked on the door and used its key", and elsewhere she sings evocatively of "Eyes so bright they just steal the night". And fittingly for an album whose early working title was "Pet Deaths", mortality stalks songs like "Burn Until the End" and "Digging Song", while "Hollow Trees House Hounds" has the kind of gothic-rustic surrealism that many admire in Bat for Lashes and Florence & the Machine. A musical icon for the Twilight generation, perhaps?

Download this Me Oh My, Sad Sad Feet, Shoeing the Bones

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in