The Loose Connections Recommender #19

On Cindy Lee, Diamond Jubilee & The Purity of Vision

Oh my god I am so in love.

Cindy Lee was unknown to me until a couple of weeks ago when I saw a snippet of footage on Instagram from a show they were performing at Zebulon in LA, my favourite venue there or maybe anywhere, was totally entranced and made a mental note to find myself some Cindy Lee to listen to.

What a joy it was to discover that Cindy Lee’s brand new fabulously titled Diamond Jubilee is actually a 32 song 2 hour double album and each song is better than or as sublime as the one before it and the one after it!

It turns out I am not the only one mesmerised by Cindy Lee, and they have been receiving accolades including a incredibly rare 9.1 Pitchfork review (‘like a foggy transmission from a rock’n’roll netherworld with its own ghostly canon of beloved hits’) that has sent this masterwork indie-viral. Baby baby baby blue, everybody wants a piece of you….

I also feel heartened to hear the backstory of this marvellous artist, which is that they have recorded, performed and released this album entirely independently and very much their own way - no press, no singles, no social media, no physical media and it can only be listened to on Youtube, for free, or purchased direct for $30 from this Geocities site: https://www.geocities.ws/ccqsk/. It felt so good to deposit my token of appreciation for their work direct into their pocket with no middleman taking a cut.

This is Cindy Lee’s sadly true statement on why:

*THE CEO OF SPOTIFY IS A THIEF AND A WAR PIG. HE STOLE 100 MILLION EUROS FROM ROCK AND ROLLERS AND USED THE MONEYTO INVEST IN 'HELSING'. 'HELSING' IS A MILITARY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INNOVATOR. 

The following comments are drawn from the uncharacteristically heartwarming YouTube comments section:

@JamesPorter-oy3gu If everyone who likes it buys the album, we can make Pat nearly a quarter mil, and there is no more deserving artist to get unexpectedly rich for a viral album drop than Pat.

@trentstrohm I feel like I’ve somehow tuned into the most beautiful and haunting radio broadcast from a parallel universe. This is truly epic

@tysonsieben3870 How can you be nostalgic for a song while listening to it for the first time?

@morpheusLA Sounds like nothing I've ever heard, and everything I've ever loved.

@foglake757 straight up already one of the best records of all time.. thank you

@trapezoidmon This is like an old friend you've never met

On their 7th album, Cindy Lee, a beguiling gum chewing pop chanteuse construct from the imagination of the Canadian artist Patrick Flegel, of the punk band Women and projects such as Freak Heat Waves, has drawn back a velvet curtain just a crack to allow us to step inside their private blissful sonic world, a world so personal and pure of vision it’s like being invited to another planet. Guitar lines are transcendently ragged and shadowy gorgeous, the bass deeply melodic , the otherworldly percussion courtesy knife and fork or clip clop horse walk or could be anything at hand really, dreamy Spanish guitar riffs, all teardrop tremolo and mascara, echoes of Lust For Life, of the Spiders From Mars, of The Ronettes, of Baccara, a lonely disco, a heat seeking missile, a giant mirror ball, a whisper in the dark.

Live, they perform a perfect 40 minute, ten song set solo, playing cascading guitar lines and singing with backing tracks and occasional help on synths. The only words spoken during the set are ‘I feel like a caged fucking animal’, followed by the hint of a smile that contains a giant wink. This album and accompanying tour are apparently the last we’ll see of Cindy Lee, but I have no doubt they’ll live on forever - I have dead friends I want to wake up and tell about Cindy Lee.

As a listener, Cindy Lee makes me want to dance alone wearing red sequins in my dark kitchen and as a music maker, they make me want to spend days practising playing guitar and writing songs half this beautiful and then recording and releasing them however the hell I feel like it.

Cindy Lee turns my lights on, fills me with yearning, power and hot thrills.

I can’t wait to put my next record out (soon! August! more soon!) and roll around in music again.

Find yourself some headphones and happy listening. x