Sold Date: February 12, 2024
Start Date: August 29, 2023
Final Price: $27.50 (USD)
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Debut album, By The Sea… And Other Solitary Places, on Ninja Tune Records wins 2015 Dead Albatross Music Prize. Chosen from over 700 albums released in the UK and Eire by over 100 judges.

DJ FOOD - NINJA TUNE

This is pretty special, passed me by when it was released in April as a co-production between If Music and Ninja Tune. Annabel (lee) qualifies for a raft of clichés to be employed – haunting, fragile, beautiful, widescreen, string-laden – it sounds like a lot of things but still manages to sound unique. I’m not sure if the orchestration is sampled or has been played and put through processing to sound like it but there’s a vintage quality to it, not dissimilar to The Caretaker’s crackly 78’s drenched in reverb, although way cleaner.  Think of Nina Simone‘s darker moments with Lou Rhodes‘ folkier ones but backed by an orchestra ripped from a 60s Bernard Herrmann score. I know nothing about her or the record’s origin but her voice is exquisite and I love it. I’ll never make a decent music reviewer, have a listen and make your own mind up. The sleeve is beautiful as well, some sort of distortion process added to old black and white photographs that perfectly match the audio they cover.

CROSSFADER Annabel (lee) – THE CLEANSING 

Genre: Dark Jazz, Noir Pop  Favorite Tracks: “Paris, Room 14,” “Scarlet One,” “See Her” 

Music that defies solid description is progressively harder to come by these days, but unsung duo Annabel (lee) certainly carry this torch. Annabel (lee) make music that feels haunted—not that this is music that will shake or unsettle you, but rather that this is music that feels imbued with the lifeblood and memories of people, places, and music long brushed under the rug. The listener honestly couldn’t be faulted for initially believing that THE CLEANSING isn’t something along the lines of a release from The Caretaker, a carefully constructed collage of jazz and orchestral music from the early 20th century. This is in large part thanks to the staggeringly beautiful voice of frontwoman Sheila Ellis, so easily placing herself within the pantheon of the vocal jazz greats that she should be seen as a peer rather than an influencee: Billie Holiday, Nina Simone, Dinah Washington, you name it… and Sade too! While the first half of the album consists of sparsely plucked acoustic guitar that aims to bring to mind the bossa nova, the latter half is what will interest more seasoned audience members, as layer upon layer of ghostly strings and vocal affectations are stacked up until you’re swept down the dusty corridors of a twilight home you’re just a little uneasy being in (“See Her”); in fact, maybe it is sort of like The Caretaker after all. [Thomas Seraydarian] Verdict: Recommend 

DAVID J – BAUHAUS/LOVE & ROCKETS

The quintessence of sophistication all couched in a pervasive hue of eerie lunar blue.

ANDREW JERVIS – BANDCAMP WEEKLY RADIO SHOW

Like a weird and wonderful dream where Ella, or Bessie, or Nina chill with Debussy, and get high listening to Boards of Canada b-sides.