(to preface, after making a rather involved mix tape regarding indie dance, and finding another person emphatic in their adoration of Ben Lee, I had to write a post… To spread enlightenment as it were ;)
In 1998 I was walking away from class in the late afternoon at LMU, not sure what I was doing- other than sad attempts at reading plato’s republic and stanislavsky’s an actor prepares- before forcing some dorm food down my gullet and pronouncing yet another day burnt down with a kamel red. To my surprise, I saw a small band playing in the sunken gardens to a thin group of listeners, all of whom I recall were quite confused with this band. I think I noticed his accent first, talking between a few songs here and there, and then of course playing a folk rendition of marylin manson’s “the beautiful people.” I later found out this young man was named ben lee. Though I liked his music, I didn’t hear anything- at least for the time I listened- that grabbed me.
A few months later, after I had switched dorm rooms due to certain ex-roommate’s penchant for bringing artillery on campus, my new roommate Andy, brought back from campus radio to our room a CD entitled “consult your electric minions.” After playing a track entitled, “An Open Letter to The Prime Minister of Australia”, I asked, between giggling, who the artist was. Andy, once again, quite shocked I didn’t know, “Dude it’s Ben Lee! He played on campus earlier this year!”
Though it probably didn’t happen this way, I recall the CD repeating right after he said Ben’s name and the track “Cigarettes Can Kill You” played for the first time. For me at least. The rest is simple history, but it’s quite important to me.
Consult your electric minions was the EP to Ben’s absolutely epic “Breathing Tornadoes,” which is a desert island album and in my top 5. My copy of the CD case is cracked, the middle hub has broken slightly, the sleeve, as if a nag hammadi document, is folded and poured over many times. This is one of the last CD’s I ever wore down to the hilt, everything else got converted to MP3 or just wasn’t ever nearly as valuable.
Ben outdid himself on this record, forging a voice in pop that simply hadn’t existed prior to breathing tornadoes. Laden with default loops and chintzy preset keyboards, backing Ben’s simple, if not perfectly memorable guitar work, is a sound that hadn’t happened yet. He did electro pop before there was any such term. He beat frou frou to the elementary idea that well sung lyrics, deep, rich melody and electronic production can go together without being overly dark and foreign (Bjork with her and guy sigworth’s beautiful homogenic may have invented the idea, but Ben must still be mentioned as a promothean voice to this style).
What is so surprising about the record is that Ben had done nothing of the sort to date. In fact, his punk rock leanings with his early act Noise Addict, and his subsequent records, “Grandpaw Would” and “Something To Remember Me By” were acoustic, folksy and quite spartan in production. At the time Ben was an early darling of a very young indie movement in the alternative music era, where alternative was quickly becoming the watchword for bland and banal.
As if to confound expectations, Ben released Tornados and forever changed my sense of music, though it is not the most well known of his records. That is also being charitable with regard to Ben’s fame; as he has never been given his due. To quote the man himself, “they don’t play my music on the radio, and that’s the way I like it.”
I imagine many of you know of this brilliant artist already, but go back, listen to this one release in particular, above all his records, and forget it came out almost 13 years ago. It’s new record day, zero day as it were, for Mr. Lee, and this record still sounds present, beautiful and unforgettable. With this record, really, it’s always Tuesday.
To reiterate, homogenic, truly breathless, still captivating as the first time that CD played through those crap hyundai speakers on the way to TAO some 12 or so years ago.
keep your headphones on…
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