He's Leaving
Cate Le Bon wasn’t unearthed at a 60’s psych/folk convention. She isn’t French, she didn’t write this track in a black and white Jim Jarmusch montage on the Left Bank of Paris. She isn’t the love child of Simon Le Bon and she didn’t find Nico alive and persuade her to cameo on ‘He’s Leaving’.
Cate Le Bon is in fact Welsh, and was recently quoted in the British press stating: ‘Nico and dead animals. I don’t think I’ll ever hear the end of them’. She probably won’t. Vocally, Cate
Le Bon channels quintessential Nico better than sometimes Nico. This has all the steady tempo and lo-fi charm of The Velvet Underground, circa ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’. A nod to
one of the most prestigious and defining albums of all time: never a bad thing.
Comparisons shouldn’t detract from what is an ornate and rare talent. Similarity aside, this graceful and uncluttered offering comprises of beautiful authenticity, poise and absolute effortlessness. Cool and composed, Le Bon sings with the most moving of sentiments, but encased in the sound of regretful simplicity.
‘He’s Leaving’ manages to reduce a vastness of emotion and spit it back at you, with the sort of raw and wistful force you just can’t dodge.
