Cate Le Bon – Pompeii

Yet it doesn't want to downplay its bow toward disorientation brought on by a double catastrophe - the global pandemic plus this colliding ecology of climate emergency. Two traumas that resonate eerily here. "What would be your final gesture?" she asks. Just as Vesuvius remains active, Pompeii has overcome its crises to tap into what Le Bon calls "an economy of time curvature," in which life rolls, bubbles, folds, melts, hardens, and reconfigures itself as unpredictably as lava-or rather sound.

Pompeii is sonically minimal, and its lyrics move between self-reflection and directness.

Written mainly on bass and composed all by herself in an "uninterrupted vacuum," Le Bon, who is currently producing Devandra Banhardt's new album, plays every instrument here (except drums and saxophones) and recorded most of the album with her longtime co-producer Samur Khouja.