Cate le Bon

Cate Le Bon plays ICA Bookstore, London, on 3 August 2026. The Welsh artist and producer has spent the past decade shaping songs that lean into abstraction, texture and tone, building emotional landscapes where form is pared back and detail does the talking.

Across six albums, from Reward to Pompeii, she has carved a singular voice that tilts between surreal clarity and sculptural minimalism. In parallel, her ear as a producer has become a reference point, with credits on records by Wilco, Horsegirl and St. Vincent that underline her knack for bending a sonic space into something intimate and idiosyncratic.

Born in rural Carmarthenshire and now based in Cardiff, Le Bon’s practice moves between solitude and close-knit collaboration. The analog warmth, filtered vocals and angular arrangements developed alongside allies like Samur Khouja and Euan Hinshelwood have become part of her signature, a sound that feels both alien and close to the skin.

On stage, expect a set orbiting her seventh album, Michelangelo Dying, a cycle that processes the grieving of a fantasy with a steady hand. Guitars, saxophones and synths are folded into layered, reflective songs that circle love, loss and the unknowable self. John Cale appears on the record; here, the same tension between restraint and release drives a live show where feeling nudges past structure, and every edge is there for a reason.