Baby Dee
Regifted Light
Drag City
Rating: 4 out of 5

Link: http://www.babydee.org/

Baby Dee plays the piano like some people make love. On Regifted Light, she makes each and every note special taking great care in her compositions. One look at Baby Dee and you would expect quite the opposite. Chipped ivories, bashed tuning, and roughed-up pieces is not what you will get. The title track to this song and “On The Day That I Died” might give you a moment of confusion after two songs of whispering delicacy and a gentle nudge of the keys.

You immediately gain your senses and ponder if you just stepped into a recital recording. The vocals are charming in the sense that you just sat down in a church on a Saturday afternoon to witness the operatic meanderings of some estranged performance. The separation of listener and performer make the experience that much more in tune with the oddity and songs on this album you clearly cannot ignore even if you tried.

“Coughing up Cat Hair” bares resemblance to that great ‘70s rock opera build up, but when you get to the end, you are missing the rock opera. You can imagine all the babies goo-gooing over “Lullabye Parade,” much like Dan Zane can encase the spirit and liveliness of a child through music or visa versa.

Whatever you can see through her latest album, Baby Dee gives you a calm not captured in indie music without any kind of kitsch to way her down. Like the morning light that reflects off of Steve Winwood’s glorious keys after a night out with Meatloaf, Queen and Andrew W.K., you will need this album to wipe the crust from your eyes.