Welsh songsmith Cate Le Bon for her first-ever New Zealand show at The Tuning Fork on Saturday October 1st.

Le Bon’s fourth studio album Crab Day, released in April 2016 to wide acclaim, is her most accomplished offering to date. Described as the “queen of Welsh psych-folk” by MOJO, Le Bon has combined her unique forces to produce the album with Welsh compatriots H. Hawkline (ex-partner Huw Evans), Sweet Baboo (Stephen Black) and Stella Mozgawa (Warpaint drummer), arguably the world’s best moniker-ed band line-up.

Since the 2008 release of her Welsh language EP debut Edrych yn Llygaid Ceffyl Benthyg ("Looking in the Eyes of a Borrowed Horse”), Le Bon’s output remains as eclectic as her album themes, she once thought to name an album Pet Deaths referencing the inevitable demise of her animals and the current Crab Day takes its title from her niece’s quirky replacement of 'April Fool’s Day' with 'Crab Day', a day for drawing crustaceans.

She’s now at the centre of LA’s hippest music circles having relocated from Cardiff in 2013. A keen collaborator, she has worked with Aphex Twin, Chemical Brothers, Perfume Genius, and her 2015 release Hermits On Holiday, recorded as one half of buzzsaw guitar duo Drinks, is a grubby, lo-fi collusion with another brilliant artistic pseudonym, White Fence (aka Tim Presley).

For one night only experience the psychedelic surrealist sounds of a true Welsh treasure as Cate performs with her formidable band (Daniel Ward, Stephen Black and John Thomas) at The Tuning Fork.

And no, Cate Le Bon is not Simon Le Bon’s Welsh love child.

Cate Le Bon

Saturday October 1st: The Tuning Fork, Auckland

Tickets via Ticketmaster