Welsh Musician Cate Le Bon Pours Heart into Seventh Album After Heartbreak

Over the past 15 years, Welsh musician Cate Le Bon has been constructing her own unique sonic world. On her seventh album, Michelangelo Dying, Le Bon plunges headfirst into the depths of heartache. After spending nearly a decade in Joshua Tree, California, Le Bon recently endured the messy collapse of a long-term relationship and relocated to her native Cardiff, Wales.

The breakup was a profound experience that Le Bon initially tried to avoid addressing in her music. However, her body revolted until she acknowledged the pain, as she experienced persistent back pain and full-body hives while traveling to produce for other artists. Le Bon eventually realized that "the breakup was always like an amputation that you don't really want, but you know will save you," and that "there's a softness that comes from the surrender" of singing about it.

Michelangelo Dying is teeming with instrumental loops and repetitive patterns that seem to ground Le Bon's songs, even as gusts of saxophone and electric guitar storm around her. Her portrayal of heartbreak glimmers in its own mythic light, as she conjures mystery and surrenders to her own experience through her ornate arrangements and billowing melodies.