LAST spotted in North Yorkshire at the Beacons Festival at Skipton in August, Welsh songstress Cate Le Bon returns north to play The Duchess in York on Wednesday.

Cate, from Carmarthenshire, rural West Wales, has progressed from being a protege of Super Furry Animals' Gruff Rhys to singing with his Neon Neon project, then marking herself out as a leading light of the Welsh music scene with her albums Me Oh My and Cyrk.

She guest-sang for the Manic Street Preachers on 4 Lonely Roads on the long-running Welsh band's Rewind The Film album and in 2012 she moved to Highland Park, Los Angeles, where she recorded her third album, Mug Museum, for release last year on the Turnstile label.

The record was informed primarily by a period of taking stock after a family bereavement. "Following the death of my maternal grandmother, I felt a very palpable shift in the roles that we'd all become accustomed to within the female line of the family," says Cate.

"For the first time, it had me mulling over the importance of my placement and purpose within this female chain. The album's theme emerged from and circulates around these maternal familial relationships and this period of calm, lengthy, intent consideration in turn drew other relationships into the Mug Museum."

The album was recorded at the Seahorse Sound studios in LA and produced by Josiah Steinbrick and Noah Georgeson, who is best known for his work with Joanna Newsom and Devendra Banhart. Accompanying Cate on the sessions were multi-instrumentalists Sweet Baboo, H. Hawkline and Nick Murray from White Fence.

"I flew H. Hawkline and Sweet Baboo over from Wales, who I've had the pleasure of playing alongside for years," she says.

"I saw White Fence play at the Troubadour last year and was mesmerised by the whole show but especially by Nick Murray's drumming and asked him to play on the album immediately after the gig."

The Welsh-Californian collaboration led to an album that is woozily melodic, dreamily confident and wrapped in a hazy psychedelic gauze, and the Welsh contingent will be very much present once more at The Duchess on Wednesday when Cardiff musician H Hawkline will be the support act, showcasing his Black Domino Box EP.

Tickets cost £10 in advance on 0844 477 1000 or at theduchessyork.co.uk or £12 on the door from 7.30pm.