Ben Lee had barely cracked the puberty code when he fronted renowned Aussie alt-rock combo Noise Addict, and as a well-weathered 16-year-old, he began his debut solo album, the mature yet still naive Grandpaw Would. Lee’s third album, Breathing Tornados, garnered best male artist and album of the year nominations in Australia. After 2002’s big-selling hey you. yes you., Lee started his own label and released the most upbeat album in his increasingly dark catalog, 2005’s Awake Is The New Sleep, requiring him to compose acceptance speeches for best male artist, best independent release and single of the year wins at home. Lee’s impressive string of successes continued with 2007’s Ripe, but the streak stopped with 2009’s The Rebirth Of Venus. The quasi-concept album of Lee’s ruminations on women was almost universally derided as half-baked philosophical twaddle set to a weirdly diverse pop soundtrack. Simultaneously, he was also examining the inherent power of dreams with Dr. Jan Lloyd, whose death last year inspired Lee to again brave the concept-album waters with Deeper Into Dream (Dangerbird), a loosely threaded set about the mind movies our brains script, direct and discard every single night. Lee will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with him.
Lee: El May is the name that my longtime collaborator Lara Meyerratken makes music under. She is so talented. Both as a musician and a visual artist, she has an attention to detail that I’ve always been in awe of her. She is releasing a single next month called “Pleasant Experience” that is actually a cover of the Brooklyn band Small Black, but her songwriting on its own is just getting better and better. I just think she is going to have a great, long career as artist who will always be doing something rather brilliant and interesting.
“Pleasant Experience” (download):
https://magnetmagazine.com/audio/PleasantExperience.mp3
