Upon the dissolution of the band Women, Toronto’s Patrick Flegel began recording solo as Cindy Lee, with results that blended classic pop motifs with wonderfully chilly late-night ambience and a bold defiance of gender norms. What’s Tonight to Eternity finds them back with an often-captivating set of songs and an undiminished love of guitar textures, including feedback. An abundant serving of alternately piercing, lilting and ethereal subterranean pop, it’s out now on W.25th, the contempo music subsidiary of the always interesting San Francisco-based reissue label Superior Viaduct.
For a lot of music past and present, the biographical info is pretty standard stuff. It’s the story of bands forming and maturing, of lone artists honing their skills, and additionally of individuals transitioning from groups into solo mode, which is the case with Cindy Lee, though with Patrick Flegel the change is deeper than it is for most, being aptly described as an evolution.
A Cindy Lee performance will reliably find Flegel in drag as their music explores queer identity and gender freedom. Like much queer art, it is deeply attached to prior touchstones while eluding the standard modes of homage. Simultaneously, while inextricably attached to the past, Cindy Lee isn’t camp; instead, their music is reminiscent of what an earlier era would have categorized as subversive. In the current moment, this is a total compliment.
Flegel’s influences include Nico, ’60s girl-group pop a la The Ronettes and The Crystals, the work of avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger, and Karen Carpenter. The impact of the last name listed relates as much to the soft-pop icon’s personal struggles as it does musically, but don’t discount the Carpenters’ recordings in the Cindy Lee scheme of things. Still, Flegel’s post-Women oeuvre is generally lo-fi and occasionally severe in a manner that a typical fan of Karen and Richard would likely find off-putting.
But then again, a major component in Cindy Lee’s appeal is in how they detonate the notion of the typical. It’s not at all difficult to comprehend the sounds that shaped What’s Tonight to Eternity, but that doesn’t make it an easy record to categorize. Moving at a gradual pace, opener “Plastic Raincoat” blends a foreboding atmosphere with swirling electronics and the sound of a ’70s pop saxophone on cough syrup.
It’s anything but tidy, but matters get considerably wilder during the seven-plus minutes of “I Want You to Suffer.” It’s the juxtaposition of upbeat neo-’60s almost Supremes-like pop with passages of shrieking amp brutality that gets things rolling, but then the track settles down into a long and concluding stretch of vocals and cathedral organ that, if less abrasive, is just as gripping.
“The Limit” isn’t as confrontational (a word Flegel has used to describe their music and performances), but its slow-motion drift (measured pacing being a recurring element in the Cindy Lee arsenal) is no less strange. One could also tag it as cinematic, a descriptor that also applies to the title track, which is just as glacial, as the electronics, out of date but not a bit retro, take on a bigger role in the scheme.
Although it’s a short piece, its non-vocal nature really drives home Flegel’s desire for Cindy Lee to be musically robust alongside the conceptual-thematic vigor. But really, the guitar in “One Second to Toe the Line,” simultaneously ’60s pop descended and stinging with verve that can only come from the underground, should leave no doubt over their instrumental concerns.
But in terms of content, What’s Tonight to Eternity is just as rewarding. This really shines brightest in “Lucifer Stand,” with its lengthy concluding borrowed audio of a woman detailing a spiritual battle, specifically her attempts to turn her back on Satan. In other people’s hands, this passage would be the source of jest or ridicule, but there isn’t a trace of that here; it’s clear Flegel respects the woman’s struggle, even if they might not share the same system of belief.
Initially, “Lucifer Stand” is quite synth-poppish (in a woozy cusp of the ’80s sense), but with a tangible retention of the ’60s pop aura, an element that continues in “Speaking from Above,” though here it’s at odds with sustained peals of feedback and general electric mulch, with the effect a bit like Keiji Haino scrapping in an alley with Julee Cruise.
They ultimately fight to a draw. Bringing up Cruise returns us to the cinematic angle, though as “Just for Loving You I Pay the Price” unwinds, perhaps the better comparison is to David Lynch circa Inland Empire. This gets to a shared lo-fi sensibility, and also to a refusal to operate in an accepted mode of the unusual. That is, many were frustrated with Inland Empire’s archaic video aesthetic, and I can imagine that after contending with the more demanding stretches of Cindy Lee’s latest, quite a few won’t be back for more.
But then again, maybe the aspects of accessibility will prove persuasive. Concluding track “Heavy Metal” is What’s Tonight to Eternity’s most fully realized pop excursion, though by this point it connects as wholly the byproduct of Cindy Lee.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
