Send "Cate Le Bon " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Popmatters |
 Cate Le Bon’s surname could mislead some. Seeing as another, unrelated Le Bon fronted Duran Duran, this Welsh chanteuse Le Bon may cause a curious listener or new releases browser to make assumptions and anticipate another La Roux style songstress; one final ‘80s throwback revivalist to make the Delorean crash. Although Le Bon got her break collaborating with Super Furry Animals leader Gruff Rhys on his ‘80s coated side-project Neon Neon (who, incidentally, released a concept album on the maker of the Delorean), Le Bon’s own music is free of any such synthetically poppy sensibilities. As with her debut Me Oh My and again on current release Cyrk, Le Bon shows a promising step in a more challenging sound, one that lands—finally—on the right side of freak folk. 2010’s Me Oh My, in spite of having moments, was a fairly low-key outing. Cyrk lets you know it will be heavier from the outset with the faded in and fuzzy “Falcon Eyed”. This is ‘60s psychedelia with nary a trapping of nostalgia or an over-eagerness to sound retro. It is just a simple enhancement of a vintage sound being pushed forward into an even stranger terrain. More recent reference points (Stereolab and Broadcast come to mind) serve more as insinuations. Le Bon has a voice all her own, enchanting and wise. At times, she sounds like a seer, as on “Fold the Cloth” when she sings, “When looking south to all the people on the ground / It’s too late to come around / Put your belly to your chest and see how close we are.” Some of the Me Oh My gentleness is still intact, on first single “Puts Me to Work” in particular. Yet even then, all of its elements—the instrumentation, production quality, Le Bon’s delivery—all sound more assured than on the already confident Me Oh My. Likewise, Le Bon’s voice shines brighter. That it lacks showiness or much exploration into higher registers allows the lyrics to be presented in a clear, well-phrased fashion. This method of delivery both gives the lyrics an air of importance that bares little surface explanation and keeps the question “where is Cate leading us?” open to speculation. Cyrk‘s title track may be the most outwardly experimental, with fuzzed guitar tones and Can references galore. With excellent closing cacophony of two-parter “Ploughing Out” Le Bone for best album outros of the year....full text |
| Pitchfork |
| In a 2009 interview with Pitchfork, Super Furry Animals' frontman Gruff Rhys admitted he was first drawn to the Velvet Underground because he thought they were fellow Welshman, having noticed John Cale's familiarly regional accent on White Light/White Heat's "The Gift". In light of this anecdote, his ongoing mentorship of Penboyr-raised/Cardiff-based avant-pop chanteuse Cate Le Bon amounts to more than just an elder statesman lending support to the next great Welsh hope; rather, in Le Bon, he presumably hears the genuine realization of that mistaken assumption. While Le Bon's cool, disaffected voice was a natural fit for Rhys' electro-fied side project, Neon Neon, the music she creates under her own name more closely resembles The Velvet Underground & Nico relocated from Warhol's Factory to a Welsh farmhouse, displaying an equal affinity for narcotic melodies and jangle-riff repetition, but with the East Village grime replaced by a certain lambswool coziness. Like many debut albums by folk-schooled solo artists trying to assert their identity, Le Bon's Me Oh My (released in 2009 on Rhys' Irony Bored Records label), could come off as both whimsically precious ("Sad Sad Feet") and state-of-the-world serious ("Terror of the Man"), but showed a willingness to disrupt its serene surroundings with cutting lyrical barbs and well-timed blasts of psychedelicized guitar fuzz. The follow-up, CYRK, does little to upset Le Bon's pastoral, turn-of-the-1970s prog-pop alchemy (as she sang on Me Oh My, "I like what I like and I like what I know"), but as its title-- the Polish word for "circus"-- indicates, it's several degrees more playful and irreverent. Where Me Oh My tended to reveal its charms and idiosyncrasies gradually, CYRK lets its guard down almost immediately with "Falcon Eyed", a scrappy, start-stop gallop that suggests Le Bon has been trading pen-pal notes with the Fiery Furnaces' Eleanor Friedberger. The song's punkish drive proves anomalous to what follows, but its mischievous energy carries through to CYRK's statelier turns as, much more so than on Me Oh My, Le Bon uses her deadpan delivery to droll effect. She takes particular delight in infusing innocent, golden-oldies-radio sounds with decidedly unromantic sentiment: "Puts Me to Work" is an ode to domestic unrest and ennui that nonetheless boasts all the sweetness and grace of the first-dance selection at a wedding, while "The Man I Wanted" finds her communicating desire for her one and only through a catatonic stare, before opportunistically asking him, "Where is the payout?"...full text |
| Consequenceofsound |
| While Cate Le Bon debuted with a dark side, her follow-up, CYRK, shows the first signs of the Cardiff-based songstress leaving that identity behind. Her haunting, Welsh-infused vocals stand as the driving force behind an album of mixed traits, mingling the familiar gloom with experimental pop. These newfound pop allowances are poised to bring Le Bon a breakout year. Le Bon has previously allowed her unforgettable Nico-esque whisper to carry her efforts, stealing the spotlight from any off-kilter instrumental work. Such is not always the case for this album, with the emphatic piano and guitar playing an equally important role. The jangly strings that accompany the swift-moving opener “Falcon Eyed” ensnare airy melodies, creating beautified chaos like that of recent tour mate St.Vincent. The appearance of trill keys on “Cyrk” are scaled back, acting as a jovial companion to a lyrical portrait of seasonal reflection. CYRK may not be centered on death like the artist’s debut, but a foreboding darkness is still intact. Stray instrumentals collect themselves to open “Greta”, with Le Bon’s syrupy, Trish Keenan-like falsetto floating on hushed keys and a budding trumpet that boldly closes out. “Through the Mill” presents a tale of sadness, as Le Bon lets listeners fill in the missing pieces with her allusive lyrics that craft more imagery than details. Even Le Bon is seemingly aware of her split personality, presenting closer “Ploughing Out” in two parts. The opening, a gentle praise song for a mysterious “he” backed by twangy guitar, is swept into an ending of cacophony, piled with brass instrumentals, merry keys laced in eeriness, and a repetitive chorus crescendoing to its exit. Le Bon maintains a careful balance with her scattered ideas, presenting an album rich in curious charm....full text |
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