Cate Le Bon
Welsh songwriter Cate Le Bon, fresh off the universally acclaimed September 2025 release of her latest record “Michelangelo Dying” and a recent collaboration with St. Vincent, will be playing Thalia Hall on Thursday, January 22. The bill features New York’s Frances Chang as an opener; Chang’s lo-fi, playful instrumentation and art-house (sans-pretention) style cohere well with the languid, brooding meditations featured in Le Bon’s latest work, forming a formidable indie tour. The new record is an international exercise, recorded in Hydra, Cardiff, London, Los Angeles and polished off in Joshua Tree. Originally scheduled for a 2024 release, Le Bon cited a catastrophic breakup impeding the finalization and release of the album, leading to further songwriting, refining, and a more emotionally centralized work. In an interview with The Guardian, Le Bon articulates the thematic texture of the record, elegantly describing it as a moment of: “realizing you’ve completely abandoned yourself in the throes of this all-encompassing love. The breakup was always like an amputation that you don’t really want, but you know will save you.”
The Penboyr (a small Carmarthenshire hamlet in Wales) native’s stylization of Le Bon (her real name is Cate Timothy) is a nod to Simon Le Bon, frontman of Duran Duran. It’s a fitting but subtle nom de guerre; Le Bon’s music, particularly in “Michelangelo Dying,” is colored by U.K.-native post-punk pop progressions. Understatedly faithful to eighties-wave electronic engineering, the Le Bon catalogue is perhaps more so rooted in sad, poetic, very indie-forward music, further from Depeche Mode and closer to Morrissey. It’s important to point out that Le Bon is a contemporary musician, and her work stands alone, though the roots of her influence are far too interesting to ignore, considering the enjoyably unusual posture of her work. The January 8 release of her single “Always The Same” featuring previous collaborator and indie giant St. Vincent, is a good place for unfamiliar indie fans to start. It’s accessible, listenable art-house indie featuring wonderful electronic and analog textures, softly woven together and backed by the two artists’ gorgeous vocals. In simpler terms, her work is inventive but unpretentious, and should make for a lovely Thursday night show later next week.
Le Bon offers a notable connection with our town: she produced Chicago-native up-and-comer Horsegirl’s latest LP “Phonetics On and On” (2025) in Wilco’s studio, The Loft. She’s also worked with Jeff Tweedy directly and produced Wilco’s “Cousin” (2023). Additionally, her production credits include Deerhunter (perhaps the most stylistically similar to Le Bon) and Kurt Vile. Thalia Hall is a perfect setting for Le Bon and Chang and will provide an intimate if grand, faithfully indie-first stage for the pair to do their thing in front of exactly the right audience.
Cate Le Bon plays Thalia Hall, 1807 South Allport, on Thursday, January 22, 8pm, with Frances Chang. Tickets are $38, available online and at the doors.
