Cate Le Bon returns this Autumn with ‘Mug Museum’, perhaps her most beguiling and complete song cycle to date, which will be released 11th November on Turnstile.
Having finished live commitments for CYRK towards the end of 2012, Le Bon returned to Wales to write the songs that would become Mug Musem. The album is informed by a period of taking stock after a bereavement.
With Le Bon subsequently relocating to California, Mug Museum was recorded at the recently opened Seahorse Sound studios, Los Angeles. Produced by Noah Georgeson (who is perhaps best known for his work with Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart) and Josiah Steinbrick.
As well as describing the personnel involved in Mug Museum, ‘Welsh – Californian’ is a phrase that captures the album’s sound: melodic, confident and wrapped in a hazy psychedelic gauze.
Throughout Mug Museum Le Bon’s voice changes register to both dramatic and emotional effect. This is beautifully exemplified on ‘I Think I Knew’, a duet with Perfume Genius, one of the album’s most atmospheric tracks and one on which two distinctive personalities combine to produce a performance of rare alchemy.
