Cate Le Bon Announces New Album Michelangelo Dying

Art-pop producer Cate Le Bon has announced the release of her seventh studio album, Michelangelo Dying. Following up 2022’s Pompeii, which we named one of the 50 best albums of that year, the album is due out September 26 via Mexican Summer. Le Bon’s new music dives into the all-encompassing experience of love. Once reluctant to write an album about the subject, she didn’t intend to take the project in this direction, but a plunge into heartache inspired her to change course. While difficult, the process of writing the record became cathartic for Le Bon. The resulting songs explore the many different stages of being in love, from its euphoric highs to heart-wrenching lows, and eventually, its lonely aftermath.

These familiar themes are apparent in Michelangelo Dying’s lead single “Heaven Is No Feeling.” Featuring Le Bon’s signature textured, distorted sound, electric guitars swim in a hazy fog in the single, while drums and bass bring drive and structure to the lush soundscape. Le Bon yearns for reciprocal love in the track, while her lover approaches her lackadaisically. “Don’t you want more love than you’ve ever dreamed of?,” she asks.

Out with the single comes a surreal music video directed by H. Hawkline, who shared the process of making the visuals in a press release. “There are moments in life you can’t make up, that seem unfathomable, then they happen. Life calls you on a banana phone and tells you her oldest joke, everybody crowds around and you try to remember the words to your favorite song,” Hawkline explained. “If you were to ask me how we made this video, I couldn’t tell you. Cate watching her, watching her watching Cate. I will always feel honored to work with Cate in whatever shape or form, it’s easy to forget how remarkable someone is when you’ve known them forever.”

Made across continents, from the Grecian island of Hydra to London, Michelangelo Dying was eventually finished in the California desert. To Le Bon, this was the perfect place to finish the record, as the open desert encapsulated the feelings of vulnerability she felt while making it. Featuring work from saxophonist Euan Hinshelwood, composer John Cale, and producer Samur Khouja, among others, the record also has the fingerprints of some of Cate Le Bon’s trusted inner circle. “There’s this idea that you could do everything yourself, but the value of having someone you completely trust, as I do Samur, be your co-pilot allows you to get completely lost knowing you’ll get pulled back in at the right moment,” Le Bon explained. “We have come to quietly move as one in the studio.”