Cate Le Bon Unveils New Album ‘Michelangelo Dying’

An introspective dive into love, loss, and surreal beauty, Michelangelo Dying marks Cate Le Bon’s most emotionally raw work to date.

Welsh artist Cate Le Bon has announced the release of her seventh studio album, Michelangelo Dying, arriving September 26 via Mexican Summer. Alongside the announcement, Le Bon has shared the record’s first single, Heaven Is No Feeling, accompanied by a video directed by long-time collaborator H. Hawkline.

Described as a project shaped by raw emotion and heartbreak, Michelangelo Dying is the result of Le Bon’s surrender to deeply personal feelings she initially intended to avoid exploring. The album was written and recorded across a range of locations, from the Greek island of Hydra and Cardiff to London, Los Angeles and the Californian desert, and reflects on the complex terrain of love, loss and memory.

The lead single, Heaven Is No Feeling, offers an early glimpse into the album’s themes of desire and detachment. Le Bon’s lyrics “You smoke our love / Like you’ve never known violence” evoke an unsettling sense of intimacy fading into abstraction. H. Hawkline’s surreal video accompaniment adds another layer, with the director noting: “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 favourite song. 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 honoured to work with Cate in whatever shape or form, it’s easy to forget how remarkable someone is when you’ve known them forever. ‘I want you to make me a new video.’ ‘Have you watched the old one yet?’ ‘No’ …Bravo!’"

Musically, Michelangelo Dying builds on the sonics of her acclaimed albums Reward (2019) and Pompeii (2022), merging organic instrumentation with manipulated textures. Guitars and saxophones are filtered and layered into a sound Le Bon describes as “a machine with a heart.”

Reflecting on the album’s scope, Le Bon adds, “No revelations. No conclusions. There is no reason. There is repetition and chaos."

To coincide with the release, Le Bon will embark on an extensive tour across North America, the UK and Europe in late 2025 and early 2026. Tickets go on sale this Friday, June 6.