dir/new_school/rant: B e n L e e
which is an incredibly fun and enjoyable pop folk album, of 18 short
upbeat coming of age songs. This description does the album no justice,
it’s really one of those rare albums which is both lyrically funny and
musically pleasing to listen too. The fact that the songs are short
and all tell a story of some sort of the other, gives this particular album
a very unique texture.
Details…
Australian-born singer/songwriter Ben Lee first emerged on the alternative rock scene while still a teenager; in 1992, at the age of just 13, he and his band Noise Addict recorded a four-track demo which led to a contract with the hip indie label Fellaheen, and within months the group had emerged as a cult favorite, opening shows for Sonic Youth and Pavement. After earning wide acclaim for their single "I Wish I Was Him," a satire of the Lemonheads' Evan Dando, Noise Addict issued their debut EP, Young and Jaded, in 1995; that same year Lee released the solo album Grampaw Would, and following one final Noise Addict project, Meet the Real You, the group disbanded. Continuing as a solo artist, Lee next surfaced with Something to Remember Me By in 1997, followed two years later by Breathing Tornados. -- Jason Ankeny, All Music Guide
More thoughts…
Months later
with "Grandpaw Would" in heavy rotation in my cd collection, I began to
turn other friends on to him and rather then get his backlog of music I
waited for his new Album: Breathing Tornados, to come out. I figured
it’d be interesting to explore what a seven year gap in production values
would give me, especially from an artist who I liked very much. In
a lot of respects I think I did this specifically cause of a adverse reaction
to the Counting Crows
sophomoric album"Recovering the Satelites".
I’d owned the album for years and originally had little use for it, finding
it very much a downer album. During the summer of 2000 though I heard
a lot of old albums again for the first time.
My girlfriend likes lyrics over music, which means that her music taste is extremely broad and truth be told music is one of the keys to the fundamentals of having a decent relationship. You only learn this when you try to jam out to some shit that your SO would rather die a painful death then hear. During the summer we went through a lot of music which I owned and had not heard for years, the sound, the taste and most importantly the texture of many albums which had done an admirable job of collecting errant dust, suddenly were filling my studio with beats and lyrics I’d never caught. Maybe I just own a crisper stereo?
Purchasing Breathing Tornados was a bitch as I went to Tower Records to buy it sound-unheard and dropped nineteen bucks for the privilege of hearing it. My girlfriend… I must admit had little use for it, as she has trapped Ben Lee in the enviable Child Star Hell of wanting all his work to sound the exact same. The new material is new and more polished, with more of a studio feel, it also has a heavier electronic feel and for various reasons which can have as much to do with Ben Lee going through puberty and consequently dating Claire Danes. He has grown up, the new material is different, good, but different. Also worth listening too, if you are a pop/folk kinda person.
What I found and I guess Ben Lee is a standing point of recognition for me is that, when the Couch sessions started, I began to approach music differently and Ben Lee was the landmark, as I found myself no longer munching the music in the subconscious background, but really, laying back in a room, filled with whatever essence you can draw from a cd and semi decent 25watt home system. I recently turned music into more then the lyrical mess of snatching sound bites that it has been in my head the last few years. I listened and have since then heard more then I thought possible in a CD. It might have been Ben Lee and that first album of his, I’m sure the company and the mood had something to do with it as well. However I’m grateful, my ignorant ears have been saved.
Tidbits
1.
Ben Lee is on the
Grand Royal Label, which is the love child of the Beastie Boys. Ben
does free music offerings which he calls Split-MP3, these MP3s are in the
spirit of old school vinyl splits. The Split-MP3 contains two songs
-one an unreleased and special track by Ben, the other a song done by an
artist of Ben's choosing.
Check his web site out at ben-lee.com
2.
Ben Lee produced
Breathing Tornados in Los Angelas, in the apartment of a guy named One
Armed Joe, who would regulary appear naked, drunk and violent, during the
recording sessions. Why I don’t know…