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Cate Le Bon

@ Electrowerkz, London, 12 September 2012
3-5 stars

by Rhian Petty

Cate Le Bon

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Wales holds a strangely ambivalent place in the English consciousness. Its very mention conjures up rolling green hills, a bucolic and mythical place of the past, the kind of place, say, that could produce someone as bonkers and brilliant as Cerys Matthews. On the other hand, however, it's grimly dark: it's the tense atmosphere of Cardiff on a Friday night or the haunted and hopeless villages ravaged by unemployment.

In Welsh singer-songwriter Cate Le Bon we can witness the synthesis of both potent elements of her homeland. Of light and dark, of whimsy and aggression. Thus in one breath she can admonish the clearly adoring crowd for swearing - "There's young people in the audience" - before singing "Now's not a good time to leave me on my own". Is it a plea or a threat? She's charming, certainly, but also a little bit unnerving. A combination which makes for a compelling stage presence.

As soon as Le Bon kicks off her set it's clear the change of venue from XOYO to Electrowerkz suits her. Her intimate near-falsetto vocal and vintage keyboards work well in a small venue. She starts off upbeat; the psychedelic energy of her new single Fold The Cloth garners a cheer. Moving on without conversation to the title track of her album Cyrk, released in August, Le Bon is confident and poised - all big kohl eyes and Karen O hair. The sound veers between the semi-acoustic, at some points it's just Le Bon's voice and keyboards, to choppy guitar-led prog rock, thanks to her band with whom she speaks about “boring technical issues” in Welsh.

Her dreamy vocals undulate seamlessly between songs, from lyric to unsettling lyric. In a captivating rendition of Julia she tells us: "In the morning the universe shines from under her skin, The delicate pattern of places she's been." The spell is somewhat broken when Le Bon finally speaks; surprisingly charming as she apologises for her tiredness, explaining: "It's not because I'm rock and roll, I went to bed at eleven last night and couldn't sleep 'til seven. We don't know why." All is normal, warm and charming for a moment, until she begins to sing again; a hush descends, and a shiver is felt.

Comparisons with Nico have been numerous and do seem inevitable given her clear and unwavering delivery, the gently harrowing nature of her subject matter and the alternate strength and fragility of her vocals. But Le Bon is perhaps at her strongest when joined in harmony by her keyboardist, when the raw, unsettling quality of her voice is softened, humanized.

Throughout her hour-long set Le Bon plays the recorder, the keyboard and the guitar, and comes on stage for her final encore alone, playing the keyboard one handed, staring out at the crowd. "Deep down in the belly of him", she sings, "Come alone." The dark beauty of her final song is undermined somewhat by her own confused final farewell: "We're doing Back in Black. Oh no we're not - that's a far better song than the one we're doing. I've just shot myself in the foot royally!" Le Bon is sweet but unpredictable, domestic but somehow feral. She loses her way at some points in the evening and the audience gets a bit restless, but she's interesting enough for you not to mind. Simultaneously of this world and otherworldly, Cate Le Bon is rapidly outgrowing her native land, although thankfully, without forgetting where she's from.

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