New Music Reviews: Cate Le Bon, Heisei No Oto, and Howie Lee

The title New Music Reviews is a little misleading this week, given that one of the new releases is a compilation of songs released between 1989 and 1996. Additionally, two of these three albums are from 2021. But read on for reviews of Welsh art-pop artist (and unexpectedly gifted bassist) Cate Le Bon, Chinese producer Howie Lee’s electronic yet traditional Birdy Island, and the Japanese 1989-1996 pop compilation Heisei No Oto.

Cate Le Bon

Pompeii

2022, 9/10
I enjoyed Welsh art-pop artist Cate Le Bon’s 2019 album Reward, but followup Pompeii is a significant step forward. Le Bon originally planned to record in an exotic location like Chile or Norway, but due to the pandemic, she was forced to record in a terraced house in Wales. Her partner, artist and musician Tim Presley, painted the album cover, depicting Le Bon as a nun. The painting was displayed in the recording area, and Le Bon told Under The Radar that “everything we did had to feel like it belonged to that painting.”.

Under her portrait’s watchful eye, Le Bon also changed her musical approach for Pompeii – she was listening to the album Music for Saxofone and Bass Guitar by Sam Gendel and Sam Wilkes. She wrote the songs on bass, and her playing on the album is impressive – the melodic, creative basslines work brilliantly as a second focal point after the vocals. She told Under the Radar that “If you’re gonna have a bass that is pretty much playing a solo for the whole song, then the guitar has to pipe down.” Le Bon plays almost all of the instruments, only using guests on drums, saxophone, and clarinet. With the bass grooves and saxophone flourishes, along with Le Bon’s detached vocals, Pompeii sometimes recalls Bowie’s Berlin records of the late 1970s – a liminal point between 1970s art-rock and the new wave pop of the early 1980s.

The record keeps up its consistency for its whole duration, driven by Le Bon’s tuneful bass playing. The sequencing is great – ‘Dirt on the Bed’ provides a soft entry to the record, building up to the catchier tunes like ‘Moderation’ and ‘Harbour’.

Pompeii is impressive, a very early contender for a best of 2022 list.

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Heisei No Oto

Japanese Left​-​field Pop From The CD Age (1989​-​1996)

2021, 8.5/10
I’m pretty sure this is the first time that I’ve included a compilation of songs from various artists in this column. Sometimes compilations seem like a lazy shortcut – an unsatisfying collection of songs that are all over the radio anyway. But this one does the opposite – it gathers up music from a scene I was almost entirely unaware of. Heisei No Oto runs the gamut from mainstream pop to hints of trip-hop and hip hop, but it’s unified by a dreamy sound. The set was collated by two longtime record shop employees.

Yellow Magic Orchestra founder Haruomi Hosono is one of the most famous names featured on the projects, with the 1996 track ‘Yeelen’, released by his project Love, Peace & Trance. There’s a lot to take in, but favourites include the dreamy instrumental ‘Phlanged Vortex’, from the 1995 album of Friends Of Earth alumni Eiki Nonaka. Nestled among the spacey instrumentals, Keisuke Sakurai demands attention with his quickfire yet relaxed rapping on 1991’s ‘Harai’ – according to Discogs he only released a single album. There’s also the oddball stuff you might expect from Japanese pop – Dido’s ‘Mermaid’ is the offbeat pop you’d expect to dominate the record.

Heisei No Oto is a coherent and enjoyable overview of weird Japanese pop.

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Howie Lee

Birdy Island

2021, 7.5/10
Chinese producer and composer Howie Lee has collaborated with PC Music artists like Charlie XCX and the late Sophie, which helps to explain why this esoteric album has gained some attention. Lee combines elements of Chinese traditional music and electronic music on this concept album. It’s based on a floating Sicilian theme park, shared by venerated birds and ancestral spirits. There’s a blend of live instruments and electronic sounds, giving it a unique atmosphere. There are no lyrics, although Lee is part of a small choir that provides wordless vocals on some tracks.

Birdy Island is outside of the usual scope of this website – it’s more about soundscapes than songs. But it’s lovely anyway – the pieces are unusually short, so that it never really drifts – Lee’s constantly bringing in new musical ideas. There’s plenty of subtle diversity – ‘Wave, Wave, Wave’ is jaunty and jazzy, while ‘Feather Signifier’ is closer to folk or prog. The choral-dominated songs at the tail of the record provide an especially contemplative atmosphere.

I’m not always in the mood for Birdy Island, but it’s a gorgeous and exotic change of pace.

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