'Tornados' breathes new life into Lee's music

If you don't know who Ben Lee is yet, rest assured that someday you will. He's the guy who sang "I Wish I Was Him" about Evan Dando and penned the line for the disgruntled '80s youth, "I thought my life would be like a John Hughes film." He put out a slew of material with his grunge band, Noise Addict, before they broke up several years ago. Russell Simins of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion calls him "the future of rock and roll."

All this and he's only 20.

On "Breathing Tornados," Lee moves away from the earthbound, slightly sugary stories of his mini-youth that were anchored with little more than a guitar and a prayer, and creates a melange of layered, synth-heavy music that offers something new with each spin. It's very glossy and polished in places, painfully coarse in others. There's much to choose from on this album, from the misleadingly upbeat lead-off track "Cigarettes Will Kill You" to the more raw songs like "The Finger and the Moon." There's also the slinky "Nighttime" and the unabashedly sweet "Birthday Song," written for girlfriend Claire Danes.

But mostly there's desperation, sometimes hidden deep within the lines and the chords. Lee has taken several concert favorites and completely reworked them for the studio. The once-anthemic "Burn to Shine" becomes a lament, dragged down by bass and lyrical reduction to the underworld that Lee seems to position this album in. Many of the songs also feature Lee's voice in a scratchy form, making the tracks on which he sings smoothly all the more striking.

"Nothing Much Happens" has also been drastically altered and includes a rather odd monologue by resident Hollywood indie freak Harmony Korine (screenwriter of "Kids," here he also co-wrote the album's title track) that references Peter Weir's "Picnic at Hanging Rock." It's an interesting reference given the content of the song, whose chorus says "Don't you know that nothing happens / but a lot goes on," a reasonably good approximation of the thematic material of Weir's film.

The biggest surprise on "BT" is the slithering, lounge lizard wake-up call "Nighttime." If there was ever song that sounded like running full speed down wet New York City streets teeming with brake lights at 3 a.m., this is it. Lee shouts his live-wire nightlife desires: "I'm worth my weight in gold / Watching the crowds unfold / Late-start velocity / Nighttime's making a mess of me.

There are a couple of throwbacks on the album to Lee's acoustic days of yesteryear. Foremost among these is "Ten Feet Tall," which is short but sweet, simple but celebratory with a fantastic opening couplet in "I'm ten feet tall today / I'm higher than a kite / I sidle up beside / Awake for five days and five nights." There's still a wistfulness in the words and the bare music, but it's the kind that'll have you walking 10 feet off the ground yourself before you realize just how bereft the rest of the album sounds.

That wistfulness works well with the two most anguished, emotionally honest songs on the album, "The Finger and the Moon" and "Sleepwalking." "Sleep-walking" is an achingly beautiful, quiet lullaby filled with pain, longing and a refrain in which Lee softly begs, "Teach me to sleepwalk / There's nothing I want more." He lets us into his dark places. He could be crying. He certainly could push more than one of us to tears.

It's hard to figure out what Ben Lee has to be desperate or sad about. He's got a girl, he's got a contract, he's got an able body and he's got his whole life ahead of him. On the one hand, he ought to enjoy what he's got. On the other, he's making some of the greatest music of his not-so-young career. As he says at the close of the album's title track, his heart is pure. So is his music, and "Breathing Tornados" is the kind of pure pop delight that keeps on giving with every repetition.

03-16-99