15 September 2022
Newsdesk
Cate Le Bon “made meaning out of high-art nonsense, turning simple, quotidian things into freaky and oblique images, the stuff of heady and sensual dreams” (NPR) on Pompeii, her album released earlier this year on Mexican Summer and one of 2022’s most praised albums so far.
Today, Le Bon returns with a new standalone single/video, “Typical Love.” Taken from the same session as Pompeii, “Typical Love” puts into effect Le Bon’s tools of angular precision against the singular groove of drummer Stella Mozgawa. Lacerated flecks of guitar and saxophone cut through the mix, revealing Le Bon’s descending vocals and svelte bassline. Co-directed by Stefan Ramírez Pérez alongside Le Bon’s longtime collaborator Phil Collins in Cologne, Germany, the “Typical Love” video was filmed on 16mmand pays homage to Henri-Georges Clouzot’s unfinished 1964 film Inferno. Once again, with “Typical Love,” Le Bon shows a commanding and dexterous touch.
“‘Typical Love’ was a product of a rare jam session with dearest genius friend, Stella Mozgawa,” Le Bon says. “The outline, written on bass along to one of Stella's infectious grooves, was taken into the Pompeii sessions where I disassembled and reassembled it many times but it always felt like a second cousin to the other tracks so was put aside for a rainy day.”
Collins adds: “Cate has always embodied a timeless mystique which distinctively conjures up the European silver screen. If Pompeii sounded like Antonioni at his most heartfelt and lyrical, then ‘Typical Love’, with its elegantly cinematic scope and crystalline propulsion, gestures towards the twisted melodramas of Henri-Georges Clouzot, Georges Franju, as well as the off-kilter glamour of Ilona Baltrush or early Ulrike Ottinger. And so, an important point of departure was working with the physicality and alchemy of 16mm, especially the unguarded moments at which the delicate tension between performer and character is acutely palpable.”
