Cate Le Bon

A native of Wales turned denizen of the California desert, Cate Le Bon makes indie rock that is familiar and alien in equal measure. Born in 1983 and raised in rural Carmarthenshire, she became inspired as a young teen by iconoclastic Welsh artists like Gorky's Zygotic Mynci and Super Furry Animals; in 2007, she found herself opening for the Furries’ Gruff Rhys, and two years later, she released her debut LP, Me Oh My, on Rhys’ Irony Bored label. From the beginning, Le Bon’s snaky guitar lines and airy voice gave her music its off-kilter charm, and with 2013’s Mug Museum—recorded in Los Angeles, it occasioned her own move there—and 2016’s Crab Day, she leaned into those instincts, developing a skeletal melodic style unmistakable as anyone else’s but her own. A frequent collaborator, she has partnered with psychedelic rocker Tim Presley in the ongoing duo DRINKS, and in 2019 she teamed up with Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox on an experimental EP recorded in Marfa, Texas. Created with the help of longtime coproducer Samur Khouja, her 2022 album, Pompeii, brought both her avant-garde tendencies and existentialist perspective into sharp relief. Ruminating on ancient ruins while the pandemic raged, she told Apple Music, “I kept thinking about the idea that we are all forever connected to everything”—a characteristic observation from an artist whose songs can resemble uncanny X-rays of human nature.