Original and intriguing. It deserves a listen.
hal st soul | between London and Los Angeles | 04/28/2010
(4 out of 5 stars)
"Baby Dee is a 57-year-old transgendered redhead from Ohio who plays harp and accordion and has collaborated with Marc Almond, Antony Hegarty and Will Oldham.
The New York torch singer experienced something of a sleeper hit with her 2008 album Safe Inside The Day.
"A Book Of Songs For Anne Marie" is essentially a reissue rather than a follow-up to that wondrous work of twilight cabaret but this album's original limited-release (150 copies back in 2004) means this material will be fresh to many ears.
Originally released as a Tibet book with an accompanying CD, the newly arranged album sees harps flutter, strings rise and Dee's voice -- a rich tapestry of whispers, bellows and cackles -- dance the fine line between the sublime and the ridiculous.
Baby Dees recordings always feel like rare gems; admittedly, "A Book Of Song for Anne Marie" is sometimes flighty and occasionally infuriating, but mostly it's wow-inducingly evocative music, and haunting riches reward the patient listener.
Each song is like a meticulously painted and deeply quaint bucolic scene (a cottage through the trees, animals looking on...).
Her vocals swoop between bawdy cackle and conspiratorial whisper, expounding fantastically vivid imagery, from the seasonal rebirth of "Lilacs" to the transformative beauty of "Black But Comely" ("I'm not a tree of sticks/But a forest of hemlock and beeches, of waters dark as wine').
Initially, this album might come across as a lighter confection than "Safe Inside The Day" but its dozen songs blossom into expansive territory.
The CD is a thing of quiet, beguiling beauty, blending Germanic lieder and Scottish folk with Dee's unplaceable third-sex warble.
On the sleevenotes, Baby Dee remarks with characteristic crisp wit: "I am less the writer of these songs than I am their unfit mother".
The elegant, eloquent arrangements are led by Dee on harp, accordion and piano, and enriched with guest flute, brass and strings.
It is not an abum for everyone, but certainly it is original and intriguing.
The songs are not he catchiest on the market, granted, but part of the album's charm lies in its total disinterest with the commercial.
It deserves a listen.
Safe Inside the Day
Stardom Road
The Crying Light
"
