Have you heard Cate Le Bon? You haven’t? Well go grab Television’s Marquee Moon, The Strokes’ Is This It, and a couple Nico albums. Now put them all in a blender, sprinkle with a smattering of 60s garage rock and The Owls Daughters and Suns, have Deerhoof give their blessing, then hit “liquify”.
What you end up with is the base for Cate Le Bon’s quirky, angular, arty, and sometimes quite stunning sound. While her newest album Mug Museum may be a derivative of several things we quite loved from the 60s and 70s, and 2000s, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t deserve our love and adoration as well. Le Bon makes decidedly interesting guitar rock with a twist of French indifference and Tom Verlaine-like guitar prowess. Her newest single “Sisters” is a mix of that dry 70s beatnik post-punk Verlaine and his Telly buddies excelled at with some 60s garage rock organ spread over the top for good measure. It’s not a hi fi sound, but definitely not something recorded in a mildew-infested closet in some dank flat overlooking the river Thames. If your heart melted in 2001 when you first heard Is This It, prepare to have all those warm, gushy feelings once again with Mug Museum, and especially with “Sisters”.
