Cindy Lee - Diamond Jubilee

This is the best, most definitive album treatment of the lo-fi style ever produced. More on that shortly.

The artist, Patrick Flegel, is ... um ... unstable. Patrick's last band was a punk outfit called Girls that ended their career with a fistfight onstage between band members. After a brief hiatus, Patrick started playing as Cindy Lee. Patrick performs in drag and uses vocal effects to achieve a shimmering and (mostly) feminine voice.

Cindy Lee has released a few albums, several tours. I don't know what happened this last time, seems nobody actually does. Patrick stopped doing interviews and went into the studio to produce a mammoth two hour long double album. It's hard to say what changed on this work, but Cindy Lee's sound is just so accessible and haunting now. Patrick is an excellent guitarist. He's deliberately producing lo-fi, scrapes and noises, off tempo shit, spaces where you expect something. The man is a brilliant instrumentalist and producer.

While the act's work was never really commercial before, now that he's produced something that could actually sell ... he's refused to do so. When it first came out, you could not buy the album unless you had some weird Canadian credit thing. You options were either youtube or download hi-quality mp3s from his site. I guess Patrick eventually got tired of being broke, and has since provided some ways to actually purchase this gem.

Buy the vinyl. $49. https://www.superiorviaduct.com/collections/cindy-lee/products/cindy-lee-diamond-jubilee-3xlp

CD on Bandcamp. https://cindylee.bandcamp.com/album/diamond-jubilee