Yes! I've been wanting to post about the "new" release from Patrick Flegel's Cindy Lee (Toronto, Canada) project since I learned that "Diamond Jubilee" had been released digitally back in April.
W. 25th (a sub-label of Superior Viaduct) is releasing a behemoth 3 LP version in February. It's up for pre-order now.
This is one of those releases that will take a long time to digest. There are 32 songs. The band is Cindy Lee. You do the math.
I think this sounds like Deerhunter, Animal Collective, Charlie Megira and Tony Jay channeling The Caretaker. But honestly, there is nothing that really sounds like Cindy Lee. "Diamond Jubilee" definitely has a more structured, melodic feel to it compared to earlier releases.
Anyone who has ever enjoyed a player that thoughtfully chewed on tapes, or treasured slowly losing the signal of a station while driving along the highway will find appeal in Cindy Lee’s combination of melody and disintegration. Though noise nearly envelops several of the songs, it’s not to conceal a lack of ideas or songwriting ability. On Act of Tenderness, Cindy Lee crafts melodies that feel inevitable but never cliché, and with a sweetness inside the din that can wrap these songs tightly around your heart.
Act of Tenderness experiments with a few sounds not found on Malenkost, which like this album was originally issued in 2015 (both newly reissued by Superior Viaduct’s W.25TH imprint). “What I Need” lopes along, aided by what sounds like a combination of synth and a life-support machine, complete with the hiss of a breathing tube and the bleeps of the heart monitor. It’s pretty and distant, like Siouxsie Sioux played through six feet of concrete. This foray into a 1980s electronic sound works as well on the shrill and groovy “Operation,” with a catchy eccentricity similar to the Flying Lizards.
More impressively, noise plays effectively against melody, and creates cohesion between songs. “Bonsai Garden,” a full-bore feedback fest, typifies this excursion into noise, with heartfelt, soul-bearing howling reminiscent of Haino Keiji’s equally intimate work on Watashi Dake. Instead of serving as a diversion from the more traditional songs, experiments like these present the clear reaches of the project, exploring further territory where pleasure and pain mix. The way the album marches from the triumphant, sun-cresting-over-the-mountain of “Fallen Angel,” through total destruction and back into familiar melody feels natural. Album highlight “Miracle of the Rose” emerges from that dense forest and sounds like a spiritual sister of “Venus in Furs,” complete with the ghost of Nico’s unearthly baritone.
Bittersweet, the word that so often comes to mind often when listening to Act of Tenderness, is also the name of a ubiquitous New England vine. Bittersweet will smother and choke the entire landscape if left unchecked, yet despite its destructive nature, bittersweet both flowers and fruits. Cindy Lee also threatens to choke and obliterate through noise, but through sweet melody and a tender falsetto, Act of Tenderness blossoms also.
Nazoranai — Beginning To Fall In Line Before Me, So Decorously, The Nature Of All That Must Be Transformed (W. 25th)
Expectations of heaviness just come with the territory when you have someone from Sunn 0))) in your band. Throw singer/multi-instrumentalist/shaman Keiji Haino into the mix and the equation goes exponential. The trio Nazoranai includes Haino, bassist Stephen O’Malley and drummer Oren Ambarchi. O’Malley is a full-time and founding member of Sun 0))), and while Ambarchi is not a full-time member, he has donned the ceremonial robes more than once on stage and in the studio. On past records the three men have delivered plenty of lumber. But while they ultimately bring the bronto-stomp on Beginning To Fall In Line Before Me, So Decorously, The Nature Of All That Must Be Transformed, it’s what they do to stave it off that makes this record so rewarding.
The album-length piece opens with an exchange of chimes and snare drum strikes, both purposeful but not particularly heavy. Over the next couple minutes Ambarchi adds more drums, but keeps the music sparse and strikingly shaped. While it feels ceremonial, it’s not attached to any particular tradition or genre. When O’Malley’s bass comes in around the three-minute mark, it’s more a felt presence than a moving part. Haino handles that function quite adequately. His main instrument on side one is a hurdy-gurdy, which he uses to trace long lines and quick trills that hang suspended over the evolving drum patterns and subliminal boom.
The band remains in this mode for the rest of side one, wringing every bit of intrigue there is to be found and patiently ratcheting up the tension. Bass and drums find a groove, but neither settles for it. Ambarchi takes particular liberties, using his cymbals to crash against the tempo like incoming storm waves challenging a breakwater. Four minutes into side two Haino switches to guitar, and the storm arrives. But it’s not a relentless one; he blows and then throttles back, dropping away to a near-nothingness that his partners abet by pulling back even more. And only then, more than a half hour in, does Haino open his mouth. His voice is stern and choked, and it takes a moment for it to register that he’s actually using English to bluntly lay out how he keeps himself off the smooth and narrow path. After a moment of solitary confession, the trio finally lets fly the wrecking ball. Some say that good things come to those who wait, but if you keep your senses open, this LP delivers different forms of good throughout.
