I’ve been hearing this sort of lushly lulling female vocalist for a long time, in the angelic lullaby of Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser, Innocence Mission’s Karen Peris, Cranes’s Alison Shaw, Sundays’ Harriet Wheeler, Cranberries’ Dolores O’Riordan, Slowdive/Mojave 3’s Rachel Goswell, Pale Saints’ Meriel Barham and more recently, Delgados’ (/solo) Emma Pollock. Tired of it I’m not! But if lead SoB (ha ha, couldn’t resist!) Sacramento’s Julie Ann Bee (or as her publishers know her, Julie Baenziger ) is off to a good start with her angelic birdcalls, she also has one more important thing the above folks do: songs for the sirens. Her writing, arrangements, and playing (she does everything other than drums and other small parts from various others) weave a willowy way with her trilling tunes. Her singing may be as soothing as a mother’s to a sick babe, but just as significantly, her music is full, peaceful, and beautifully unfolding to the world in deeper-than-Lilith-Fair tones of acoustic guitar, light bass, pianos, quiet percussion (and on the closing song, a mournful cello), and other twinkling touches. It’s an enthralling aesthetic that seems to scream for attention from the 4AD label, in its golden past or respectable present. And it’s hardly an exercise in navel-gazing, either; Ms. Bee is up for an up-tempo romp like “Sidepain” with just as much gusto as her more melancholic or contemplative odes. The miss is already a deserved NPR favorite; put her in an English band with a major deal, and she’d be on the cover of several Brit mags by now, with London throwing gladiolas at her feet. (Even if she isn’t a classical hetero looker like so many of the above, offering instead a bookish, everywoman, admitted lesbian-next-door innocence.) As it is, ol’ Blighty will get its chance when she takes her Sea of Bees sound there on a three-week tour in early 2011 with Smoke Fairies . Lucky Brits. (Note, if you enjoy this album, Bee’s self-played debut EP Bee Eee Pee comes with this CD as a digital drag-and-drop free download.) (crossbillrecords.com)
