LE BON, CATE/COX, BRADFORD (DEERHUNTER) - Myths 004 (Sealed) (LP)

The Welsh singer-songwriter Cate Le Bon released her excellent album Reward this year, and that’s only one of the great 2019 records she’s been involved with. Le Bon also co-produced Deerhunter’s most recent album Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared? in Marfa, Texas in the spring of 2018. During that same time period, Le Bon and Deerhunter’s Bradford Cox were performers in residence at the Marfa Myths festival, a posting that resulted in the two of them also recording a collaborative EP. This fall, about a year and a half after it was recorded, that EP is finally coming out. As you might guess based on the title, Myths 004 is the fourth in a series of collaborative EPs recorded at Marfa Myths. (Previous installments have come from Dungen and Woods, Ariel Pink and Weyes Blood, and Connan Mockasin and Dev Hynes.) Myths 004 features playing from Le Bon’s DRINKS bandmate Tim Presley, Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa, Sweet Baboo’s Stephen Black, and Samur Khouja. Its lead single is a lovely little baroque pop tune called “Secretary.” Le Bon mostly takes the lead on this one, but there’s a spoken-word bit from Cox at the end that reminds me of the Fiery Furnaces. It’s good! Le Bon’s statement from a press release: Marfa is an extraordinary town. It feels like nothing else exists when you’re in it which is both comforting and unnerving. We committed ourselves to embracing the chaos, surrendering to all moments and moods that travelled through. It’s a crude holiday scrapbook shared by all involved, an amalgamation of the changes in mood and light that shaped the days.