Cate Le Bon has released the video for ‘Home To You’, her second single from her forthcoming album, Reward, due May 24th on Mexican Summer.
The video for ‘Home To You’ was directed by visual artist and filmmaker Phil Collins and co-produced with Kino Úsmev in collaboration with the residents of Lunik IX neighborhood of Košice (Eastern Slovakia). Košice has a large Roma community who, due to successive governmental and municipal policies, often live in slums and on isolated, dilapidated estates, such as Lunik IX. Historically, and again in recent years, Roma communities across Europe have been targets of persecution and systemic neglect, from housing and access to basic services, such as electricity and water, to employment and health. These attitudes are reflected in the hostility and casual racism of the general population.Working closely with a number of local protagonists, Collins finds moments of dignity and joy amidst everyday hardships.
“In an age of discord, in which the politics of division and xenophobia — from Brexit to Trump — tears communities apart across nations and continents, it is crucial to stand in solidarity everywhere with those subjected to routine discrimination and denied a sense of belonging,” says Collins. “With its invocation of yearning, absence and loss, Cate’s hypnotic canon expresses this conviction with the lithe, acute awareness found in the best of critical pop, and speaks to its moment just like ‘Ghost Town’ or ‘Private Armies’ spoke to theirs.”
Reward was written largely during a year that Le Bon spent in the Lake District, a mountainous border region between England and Scotland, and was recorded in California. The album’s ten songs were conceived alone at a piano, which remains evident by the feeling of closeness that they convey. Reward is Le Bon’s most personal statement to date. It advances in leaps and bounds her idiosyncratic vision of avant-pop — restless, audacious, surrealistically-inclined — which is equally at home in low-fi experiments, exquisite songcraft and intricate production flourishes.This stems directly from Le Bon herself and the inimitable way in which she works, all of which preserves a signature sound despite relatively drastic changes in approach. The result is an album every bit as stylistically varied, surrealistically-inclined and tactile as those in the enduring outsider’s back catalogue, but one that is also intensely introspective and profound and significantly her most personal to date.
Cate Le Bon is set to embark on a tour this summer, dates below.
Sat. May 18 – Wrexham, UK @ Focus Wales Festival
Fri. May 24 – Rouen, FR @ Rush Festival
Sat. May 25 – Toulouse, FR @ Discipline Festival
Sun. May 26 – Madrid, ES @ Independance Club
Mon. May 27 – Donostia, ES @ Dabadaba
Tue. May 28 – Barcelona, ES @ Primavera Sound Festival
Wed. May 29 – Bordeaux, FR @ iBoat
Fri. May 31 – Hilvarenbeek, NL @ Best Kept Secret Festival
Sat. June 1 – Neustrelitz, DE @ Immergut Festival
Sun. June 2 – Berlin, DE @ Kantine Am Berghain
Mon. June 3 – Copenhagen, DK @ Den Grå Hal (w/ Deerhunter)
Tue. June 4 – Aarhus, DK @ Tape
Thu. June 6 – Cologne, DE @ Bumann & SOHN
Fri. June 7 – Brussels, BE @ Les Ateliers Claus
Sat. June 8 – Paris, FR @ Villette Sonique
Mon. June 10 – London, UK @ Village Underground
Sat. June 22 – Calgary, AB @ Sled Island Festival
Tue. June 25 – Kingston, NY @ BSP Kingston
Wed. June 26 – Brooklyn, NY @ Elsewhere
Thu. June 27 – Washington, DC @ Black Cat
Fri. June 28 – Philadelphia, PA @ Boot & Saddle
Sat. June 29 – North Adams, MA @ Solid Sound Festival
Sun. June 30 – Somerville, MA @ ONCE Lounge
Fri. July 5 – Pioneertown, CA @ Pappy & Harriet’s
Sat. July 6 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Getty Center
Sun. July 7 – Santa Cruz, CA @ Moe’s Alley
Tue. July 9 – San Francisco, CA @ The Chapel
Fri. July 12 – Seattle, WA @ Doug Fir Lounge
Sat. July 13 – Seattle, WA @ The Crocodile Cafe
Thu. July 18 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue (w/ Parquet Courts)
Fri. July 19 – Chicago, IL – Constellation
Sat. July 20 – Chicago, IL @ Pitchfork Festival
Fri. Aug. 23 – Bethesda, UK @ Neuadd Ogwen
Sat. Aug. 24 – West Lothian, UK @ Jupiter Rising Festival
Sun. Aug. 25 – Edinburgh, UK @ Edinburgh Fringe Festival
Tue. Aug. 27 – Manchester, UK @ Gorilla
Wed. Aug. 28 – Leeds, UK @ Riley Smith Theatre
Thu. Aug. 29 – Cardiff, UK @ Portland House
Sun. Sept. 1 – Dorset, UK @ End of the Road Festival
