Mug Museum

Welsh singer/songwriter Cate Le Bon enlists the services of Devendra Banhart/Joanna Newsom producer Noah Georgeson to help find the right balance between minimalism and a musical breakdown. The best tracks on her third album, Mug Museum, are held together by a thumping electric bass guitar, a near-barren drum set, and her voice in one speaker; guitars or keyboards move in from the other. It creates the feel of a pop and folk singer from another era—likely the early ‘70s, when the U.K., especially, seemed to find these outliers on a regular basis (to potentially rule out their position as outliers). Though the album was recorded in her new home of Los Angeles, there’s nothing in these spooky songs (“No God,” “I Think I Knew”) to suggest she’s done anything differently. A full band comes a-crankin’ for “I Can’t Help You,” “Wild," and “Sisters,” and whatever lessons they learned from The Velvet Underground are put to good use.