by Jamie Robash
photo by Ivana Klickovic
Welsh indie folk songstress Cate Le Bon has, in her now decade-long career, made some of the most interesting music of this century. Calling her range of albums, from her debut Me Oh My to this year’s Reward, “eclectic” doesn’t really do Le Bon’s art justice. Yes her music is strange and chaotic, oftentimes jumping from bizarre piecemeal talk pieces and field recordings before delving into something that actually sounds like the bare bones of a song. She works in the same vein of peculiar chaos as ‘70s Brit rockers Beckett, oftentimes refusing to conform to a simple narrative in order to tell a story. Unlike Beckett, however, Le Bon has worked backwards in that Reward, which she recorded while living alone in the English mountains, is less of an oddity-riddled performance piece and more of a linear record full of lush, orchestrated compositions that open the door and let the listener in.
