TRIPLE VINYL + poster
You waited and waited and waited some more. And now here is your reward. Originally issued as a single near-three hour long YouTube upload and only available as a download via the Cindy Lee Geocities site midway through 2024, I was skeptical as to whether this one would ever appear in physical form. While the music itself is of the 'Generationally Great' variety and the fan/critical response has been substantial, Diamond Jubilee is not really a vinyl-friendly length (there's three discs here and it runs right to the end of what's possible) and then there's been the cancelled tours in the US amidst a general cloud of uncertainty. But good sense will out and here it is. As for the music? Well, let's call it Cindy Lee's magnum opus, not just because there's absolutely loads of it, but because it seems to signal the moment when everything the project stands for has come together as one, a lightning strike capturing of the alterna universe of purgatorial, in-between-stations song Patrick Flegel has been refining over a decade or so now. This is the true gesamtkunstwerk, a total artwork to be lived in, songs that sound as equally alien as familiar, and yet clearly from the same pen. You know a Cindy Lee song when you hear one. It triggers a sense memory, one you can't quite place - be that the Velvets, The Supremes or Haunted Graffiti, or... - and transports you into another space (is Flegel the master of liminal space pop song? The evidence here suggests so). I've long considered What's Tonight To Eternity to be the best album released during the shop's lifetime. A new contender has just entered the game.
