Cindy Lee is the drag queen hypnagogic pop project of Canadian musician Patrick Flegel, former guitarist and lead singer of Women, a brilliant and volatile Canadian post-punk band of the late 2000's, who flamed out quickly after two albums, an onstage fistfight, and the unrelated sudden death of one member. Their spindly guitar lines, asymmetrical rhythms, and surprisingly sweet melodies have remained influential on wide swaths of DIY rock. Following the breakup of Women in 2010, Flegel collaborated with Morgan Cook in the band Androgynous Mind, releasing the EP Nightstalker in 2012, and from there, the project evolved into Cindy Lee, which sees Flegel recording music primarily alone, but continuing to perform with a rotating roster of supporting musicians. The demo cassette 'Tatlashea' was released in 2012, followed by the full-length albums 'Act Of Tenderness' and 'Melenkost' in 2015, and in 2018 'Act Of Tenderness' was re-issued, with 'What's Tonight To Eternity?' following in February 2020, and the project's fifth album, 'Cat o' Nine Tails', appeared just a month later, in March 2020. Four years later, in March 2024, Cindy Lee released the double album 'Diamond Jubilee', but this time it was only available as a download from a geocites site or for streaming on Youtube. Despite this limited availability, it received widespread critical acclaim, including the highest score given out by Pitchfork in four years, and it is a shortlisted finalist for the 2024 Polaris Music Prize. There is no accompanying press or liner notes, no artist bio, no interviews; just a sprawling two-part, two-hour record that has dropped in from nowhere, and because of this it's ignored by the algorithms, playlists and radio stations who have no access to the tracks to promote it. However, the buzz appears genuinely justified, and 'Diamond Jubilee' feels like the work of an artist operating at the peak of their powers, who is able to harness and crystallise all that potency and charge into a record that, on the surface, should be far too large, messy and stretched out to contain such a cohesive body of work. Flegel blurs genres with glee, gliding between '50s doo wop, '60s girl groups, psychedelic pop and lo-fi indie, all delivered with a woozy, dreamy, occasionally crepuscular tone. I must admit that Cindy Lee are a new band to me, but on seeing the effusive reviews for the album I had to give them a try, and after hearing it, it was no-brainer to share it for any one who can't get hold of a copy any other way.
Track listing
Disc One
01 Diamond Jubilee
02 Glitz
03 Baby Blue
04 Dreams of You
05 All I Want Is You
06 Dallas
07 Olive Drab
08 Always Dreaming
09 Wild One
10 Flesh and Blood
11 Le Machiniste Fantome
12 Kingdom Come
13 Demon Bitch
14 I Have My Doubts
15 Til Polarity's End
16 Realistik Heaven
Disc Two
01 Stone Faces
02 Gayblevision
03 Dracula
04 Lockstepp
05 Government Cheque
06 Deepest Blue
07 To Heal This Wounded Heart
08 Golden Microphone
09 If You Hear Me Crying
10 Darling of the Diskoteque
11 Don't Tell Me I'm Wrong
12 What's It Going to Take
13 Wild Rose
14 Durham City Limit
15 Crime of Passion
16 24/7 Heaven
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