Cate Le Bon : Pompeii

Pompeii, Cate Le Bons sixth full-length studio album and the follow up to 2019s Mercury nominated Reward, bears a storied title summoning apocalypse, but the metaphor eclipses any dissection of immediacy, says Le Bon. Not to downplay her nod to disorientation induced by double catastrophe global pandemic plus climate emergencys colliding ecotraumas resonate all too eerily. What would be your last gesture? she asks. But just as Vesuvius remains active, 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 lavaor sound, rather. Like she says in the opener, Dirt on the Bed, Sound doesnt go away / In habitual silence / It reinvents the surface / Of everything you touch. Pompeii is sonically minimal in parts, and its lyrics jog between self-reflection and direct address. Vulnerability, although obscured, challenges Le Bons tend