Emotional Rescue

On her seventh album, Welsh art-rocker Cate Le Bon has returned to her homeland after a period of living in California. On the emotional Michelangelo Dying, she comes to terms with a broken heart and even teams up with fellow countryman John Cale. The singer-songwriter tells Prog about what she refers to as her "necessary exorcism" and why she's looking forward to playing her new songs live.

- Julian Marszalek

Cate Le Bon's return to Cardiff after nearly a decade living in California felt less like a culture shock and more like an overdue homecoming.

"It's been really lovely," she says warmly from her home in Wales. "I was back and forth anyway, but living in the States made me feel more Welsh than I'd ever felt before. People couldn't understand what I was saying because the corners of my accent never got knocked off."

It's difficult to shake the feeling that her return home gave Le Bon the grounding needed to face the heartache she'd been running from since the break up of her long-term romantic relationship with American musician Tim Presley, with whom she'd recorded two albums as DRINKS.

"You can't outrun these things," she says. "So I ended up rolling up my sleeves and just letting it happen."

Ergo Michelangelo Dying. Her seventh album that, she tells Prog, is not so much an artistic statement but a "necessary exorcism."

"I was trying to overtake the emotional pain. By working on other people's records and moving between Los Angeles and Chicago I thought I was dodging heartbreak, but I was really just dragging it with me."

And so Cate Le Bon has come full circle. Born in Carmarthenshire in 1983, she was inspired in her teens by idiosyncratic compatriots Super Furry Animals and Gorky's Zygotic Mynci. She came to prominence when she supported the former band's frontman, Gruff Rhys, on his 2007 solo tour. Initially creating a form of folk-tinged psychedelia, each subsequent album release found Le Bon striking out in ever more inventive directions. Moving to California in 2013, she spread her creative wings further by producing albums by artists as varied as alt country rockers Wilco, cosmic hippie Devendra Banhart and indie favourites Deerhunter, among others. Yet, despite the creativity and collaborations,