I Rock The Beat, But I Don't Have The Time---Cate Le Bon--My Oh My---

Just wanted to say a few words about Cate Le Bon's promising debut album My Oh My. I first heard her voice on I Lust U on the brilliant 80's concept album Neon Neon, which I wrote about previously on this site. Later on I had heard she had released this album and I heard things. You know, good things. Gruff Rhys liked  her enough to release this album on his Irony Bored label.

So here I am listening to this album. The general consensus is she is the Welsh (Penboyr to be exact) answer to Nico. Well...I can see how that could be said, but to a degree I think she is doing her unique own thing which is part of a bigger older folk tradition. But I definitely feel her darkness. Obviously there are Velvet Underground here arrangements here, and there is the fuzz guitar riffs that I hear on the albums of Brazilian Tropicalistas Os Mutantes. There is a vintage quality to what she does, like being in a 60's time machine. She has a lovely moving voice, though quite a bit on the dour side. If you want to go the Velvet's route, I can't be help but be reminded of Mo Tucker singing After Hours. Or maybe more apt, a female Nick Cave. But there is a realistic personal quality to her lyrics. The mainstream music scene today is so divorced from this creative side of music. Dumbed down repetitive simple hedonistic narcissistic lyrics being jammed down the throat of a docile public, like sonic warfare.



Hearing a down to earth unassuming gem of an album like this is a welcome antidote to formulaic crap. Give me an Artist over an Idol any day.

I find this to be a very engaging album that does a good job changing stylistic gears, though the styles are from 40+ years ago. They run from the gamut of Black Angel Death Song raveup Burn Until The End or the lovely plaintive bleak folk of Sad Sad Feet. It's like looking at the world through someone else's eyes. And like Joe Pernice, she combines lovely melodies with lyrics that make you do a double-take. Wait, what did she just say? "I want to burn until the End???"



All I can say is that I look forward to hear what she does next. I wouldn't be surprised if she does something in an entirely different direction. Then again, if she kept making albums like Me Oh My I would not shed tears of disappointment. She has an amazing ability to combine the bizarre and singular with the universal. You only have to listen to the lyrics of the seemingly traditional folk song Shoeing the Bones. I heard that she put out a Welsh language album on the Peski label. I definitely would love to hear some of that. It's a great language to hear people sing, though I don't speak the language at all. It seems that these days Wales is doing all it can to keep their mother tongue alive, which is a fantastic thing.



Sometimes it's easy to get jaded, and think that there is nothing good coming out. But then I hear music like this and I realize that the music is out there. But even with the global connectivity of the internet it may even be harder to locate.