Today, Cate Le Bon presents a new single/video, “Moderation,” off of her forthcoming album, Pompeii, out February 4, 2022 on Mexican Summer. The songs of Pompeii feel suspended in time, both of the moment and instant but reactionary and Dada-esque in their insistence to be playful, satirical, and surreal. From the spirited, strutting bass fretwork of “Moderation”, to the sax-swagger of lead single, “Running Away”; a tale exquisite in nature but ultimately doomed, escapism lives as a foil to the outside world. Pompeii’s audacious tribute to memory, compassion, and mortal salience is here to stay. Le Bon says “Moderation” is “a nod to the daily dilemma of trying to curb inherited and novel habits, when you want to eat the moon, and an essay written by the architect Lina Bo Bardi in 1958 that continues to kick hard.” The playful video was directed by Juliana and Nicola Giraffe of Giraffe Studios and filmed through a window of Bardi’s.
Watch Cate Le Bon’s Video for “Moderation”
Pompeii is Le Bon’s sixth studio album, and the follow-up to 2019’s Reward. Written primarily on bass, Le Bon plays every instrument (except drums and saxophones) and recorded the album largely by herself with long-term collaborator and co-producer Samur Khouja in Cardiff, Wales. Enforced time and space pushed boundaries, leading to an even more extreme version of Le Bon's studio process – as exits were sealed, she granted herself “permission to annihilate identity.” A global pandemic plus climate emergency’s colliding eco-traumas resonate all too eerily. “What would be your last gesture?” she asks. But Pompeii reaches past the current crises to tap into what Le Bon calls “an economy of time warp” where life roils, bubbles, wrinkles, melts, hardens, and reconfigures unpredictably, like lava—or sound, rather.
Over the past few years, Le Bon has emerged as a sought-after collaborator, producing albums for Deerhunter, John Grant, Devendra Banhart and more. In 2019, she joined John Cale for a three-night live stretch in Paris, and this year, she guests on Courtney Barnett's just released album. As Bradford Cox aptly notes, "there are artists who look inwards or outwards, and then there are the very rare ones who transcend either location.”
Watch the “Running Away” Video
Pre-order Pompeii
Cate Le Bon 2022 Tour Dates
- Mon. March 12 - Southampton, UK @ Engine Rooms
- Tue. March 15 - London, UK @ Hackney Empire
- Wed. March 16 - Manchester, UK @ Albert Hall
- Thu. March 17 - Glasgow, UK @ Queen Margaret Union
- Fri. March 18 - Belfast, IE @ Empire Music Hall
- Sat. March 19 - Dublin, IE @ The National Concert Hall
- Mon. March 21 - Liverpool, UK @ Arts Club
- Tue. March 22 - Leeds, UK @ Irish Centre
- Wed. March 23 - Birmingham, UK @ The Mill
- Mon. March 28 - Lille, FR @ L’Aeronef
- Tue. March 29 - Paris, FR @ La Maroquinerie
- Thu. March 31 - Lyon, FR @ Epicerie Moderne
- Fri. April 1 - Zurich, CH @ Bogen F
- Sat. April 2 - Schorndorf, DE @ Manufaktur
- Sun. April 3 - Leipzig, DE @ UT Connewitz
- Tue. April 5 - Berlin, DE @ Frannz Club
- Wed. April 6 - Hamburg, DE @ Nochtspeicher
- Thu. April 7 - Hus 7 / Slaktkyrkan @ Stockholm, SE
- Fri. April 8 - Oslo, NO @ Parkteatre
- Sat. April 9 - Copenhagen, DK @ Small Vega
- Mon. April 11 - Brussels, BE @ AB Box
- Tue. April 12 - Amsterdam, NL @ Paradiso