Baby Dee
Safe Inside the Day
(Drag City, 2008)

Baby Dee is a shaman, a holy fool, a poet, songwriter, musician, transgender circus performer, and a singer with an amazing rage that can easily deceive you into thinking these songs are being sung by a chorus of men, women, children, and small animals. Her music ranges from classic pop to pieces that sound like classical music, Baroque, and romantic. There’s also a touch of vaudeville, blues, rock, and dramatic ballads that sound like Broadway show tunes from an alternative universe where musical tragedy is bigger than musical comedy. Baby Dee is unlike anyone you’ve ever heard, a unique and sometimes scary personality with her own skewed reality and the talent to make it come alive for her listeners.

Dee was born in Cleveland in 1953 and was a classically trained harp player in her youth. At one point she ran away to New York, lived on the street, was part of the Kamikaze Freak Show where she became infamous for laying on broken glass. She also joined the Bindlestiff Family Cirkus and haunted the city on a tricycle large enough to carry her harp while wearing angel wings and a party dress. She moved back to Cleveland in the late ‘80s to take care of her dying father and started writing songs. She sent demos to her pal and fellow free spirit Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons) who passed them on to David Tibet. Tibet signed Dee to his Durto logo and put out several albums of Dee’s bleak, distressed music.

Safe Inside the Day is Dee’s fourth opus, a collection that’s sunnier and more upbeat than her past efforts, but that’s not to say it’s an easy listen. The songs deal with various kinds of emotional and physical abuse, depression, and alienation, as well as the healing power of music and love. Producers Matt Sweeney (Chavez, Zwan, Superwolf) and Bonnie “Prince” Billy (AKA Will Oldham) help flesh out the album with invited guests that include Andrew W.K., James Lo (Chavez), Max Moston (Antony and the Johnsons), John Contreras (Current 93), William Breeze (Current 93, Psychic TV, Coil), Robbie Lee, and Lia Kessel (the Marina), but the gang stays in the background leaving Dee lots of room for her over-the-top vocals.

The songs here deal with Dee’s childhood, and are crammed with the horrible and wonderful visions that can plague an impressionable youth. “Fresh Out of Candles” references the suicide of Superman (George Reeves) and uses Saint Blaise, the patron of children who choke to death, as a metaphor for frightening religious teachings, parables about salvation that often do more harm than good. Dee sings the song gently, but moves slowly into a dark emotional place that seems to hold her captive. “When did it start feelin’ like a sin to hope?” she sings in a weary voice full of jaded resignation. The album’s most powerful track is “The Earlie King”, a song based on a folk tale about erlkings, evil sprite who lure children to their doom by promising them a taste of forbidden fruit. The music here is menacing, a blend of European dissonance, sinister tango, and decadent pop. Her voice shifts from a child’s whisper to the cold snicker of a malicious adult, to the chilling tone of a master storyteller. As the child moves into spiritual darkness, the music becomes louder and more ominous, slowly dwindling to a terrified murmur.

“Bad Kidneys” is an instrumental, an indigo tango played by Dee’s accordion and highlighted by random piano, drum, bass, and sax accents, leading up to Dee’s wordless, howling vocals, drunken shouts of abandon and liberation. On the lighter side we have “You’ll Find Your Footing” and the title track, gentle hymns that rejoice in the healing power of love and music. “Footing” is a trembling lullaby delivered in Dee’s high, almost countertenor voice. “Safe Inside the Day” is a vocal tour de force full of octave leaps and changes in time and timbre, the performance of a vocal chameleon not afraid to show off her considerable chops. The song’s message of musical salvation is complimented by Dee’s Gospel-tinged piano and a gentle, poetic lyric. Dee’s music and vocal performance is challenging, wide open, and unpredictable, but as the music unfolds, its considerable beauty and unexpected subtlety become evident.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]