Cate Le Bon

Cardiff, Wales native Cate Le Bon matched her slightly spooky, fragile voice with dark lyrics — she confessed to being death-fixated — and a sparse, spindly guitar sound. In 2007, she opened for Super Furry Animals' Gruff Rhys, with whom she occasionally collaborated, during a tour of the U.K. That same year, she self-released her first single, "No One Can Drag Me Down"/"Disappear," and recorded an album, Pet Deaths, which was shelved. Edrych yn Llygaid Ceffyl Benthyg, a Welsh-language EP, was issued on Peski in 2008, the same year she contributed vocals to "I Lust U," a song from Rhys and Bryan Hollon's Neon Neon album Stainless Style. Me Oh My, Le Bon's first album to actually be released, came out on Rhys' Irony Bored label in 2009 and was hotly tipped by Uncut magazine. Her sophomore release, Cyrk, which paired the spooky, folk-tinged timbre of Nico with the experimental, Nuggets-meets-Krautrock attack of Os Mutantes and Faust, arrived in early 2012, followed by the like-minded Mug Museum in 2013.