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W.25TH is proud to announce the reissue of Cindy Lee's Cat O' Nine Tails, originally released in 2020 as an extremely limited edition of 50 lathe-cut LPs housed in silk-screened jackets. This essential collection, released in the wake of What's Tonight To Eternity, has long captivated die-hard fans with its perfect synthesis of classic songwriting and classical composition.
The album opens with the gothic drama of "Our Lady Of Sorrows," flowing into the manic exploration of the title track before settling into the dusty western atmosphere of "Faith Restored," showcasing Patrick Flegel's exquisite guitar work. Together, these tracks create a cinematic journey that feels like the soundtrack to the coolest film the late '60s never made. The emotional centerpiece arrives with "Love Remains," a lush and sweeping ballad that introduces Flegel's beautiful voice in all its bruised-heart glory.
Side Two delivers the epic conclusion of "Cat O' Nine Tails III"—a live show closer that completes the suite with devastating effect—before unveiling the absolute showstopper "I Don't Want To Fall In Love Again." Tender and fragile in that distinctly Flegel way, it achieves the rare balance of familiar intimacy and startling uniqueness. The album closes with "Bondage Of The Mind," an ethereal soul shuffle that showcases nine songs from a crucial period in the Cindy Lee evolution.
Cindy Lee is the diva alter-ego of singer / guitarist Patrick Flegel, the one-time captain of heralded Canadian experimental guitar pop act, Women. In Flegel's working on / as Cindy Lee exclusively over recent years, their songwriting makes a move toward high atmospherics, often achieving a mysterious sweetness rooted equally in beauty and ache.
As Cindy Lee's third long-form statement, Act Of Tenderness makes use of antipodal themes to create a living sound: static with grace, distortion and sugar, all masterfully arranged with crooked nods toward pop classicism. The layered vocal on "Power And Possession" creates a palpable haunt, bringing historical girl-group lament to choir-esque heights. The feedback shriek and industrial grind of "Bonsai Garden" provides near-operatic damage, yet never stumbles into the irrevocably grave. These snowy pieces give the album a decidedly cinematic feel, albeit one bent more towards Eraserhead.
Originally released in a scant private edition in 2015, Superior Viaduct's imprint W.25TH is pleased to give Act Of Tenderness its deserving wide release.
Download card includes bonus track "Revelation."
Cindy Lee is the brainchild of singer / guitarist Patrick Flegel. While some may know Flegel from their time spent in Canadian experimental indie band Women, Cindy Lee has spent the past four years crafting songs that push and pull in opposing directions – from tales of tragedy laced with haywire distortion to moments of breathtaking beauty.
On Malenkost, Flegel combines everything that makes Cindy Lee so essential: heart-wrenching romantic pleas, rough shards of noise and twilit ballads. Featuring the lo-fi pop single "A Message From The Aching Sky," Malenkost sounds like Deerhunter playing The Supremes or vice versa.
Superior Viaduct's imprint W.25TH presents the first of many Cindy Lee releases. Spectral and timeless, the music of Cindy Lee is hauntingly familiar yet of another plane, a magical collision of Brill Building hooks and uncompromising No Wave.
Cindy Lee, the performance and songwriting vehicle of Canadian artist Patrick Flegel (who fronted influential indie group Women earlier), previously stunned listeners with Act Of Tenderness, a heart-wrenching statement informed by the noirish core of celebrity, and has continued to enchant with every album, including the startling What's Tonight To Eternity released earlier this year.
Model Express originally appeared as a self-released edition of 100 gold cassettes. The arch, filmic drama of Cindy Lee's songwriting – realized with keyboards, guitars, aching voice and collaged, lo-fi production – traverses a wide range of emotional and sonic terrain. The red velvet psych-pop of "What Can I Do" gives way to the fluid "Diamond Ring" like radio bursts from space. Model Express finds Flegel at both their most experimental and immediately melodic, and this first-time vinyl release recognizes the collected tracks as a pillar in the Cindy Lee catalogue.

Sublime psych drone and gauzy chamber pop by Oakland, CA duo Cuneiform Tabs, unmistakably on a plane shared by everyone from Flaming Tunes to Jane Arden & Jack Bond, Cindy Lee, Animal Collective. “Quickly on the heels of their debut, Cuneiform Tabs return with Age, an LP that takes a massive leap forward in both melodic sensibilities and inventiveness. Bathed in late night psychedelia and the looping repetition of a drone sample, the group's experimental penchants remain, yet this time wrapped around tunes too sweet to be denied. In pulling back a little of the crackle and haze that made their first album so inviting, the Tabs have revealed more of their pop instincts. The overall effect is a perfect set of early Animal Collective demos or Syd Barrett attempting a Television Personalities cover at 3am. The duo of Matt Bleyle and Sterling Mackinnon continue their system of trading 4-track tapes between the Bay Area and London, a furtive correspondence until sonic nuggets are fully formed. While these songs are very much the product of the Tascam and rudimentary software that is integral to the band, this album is truly the embrace of their songwriting talents – not unlike the recent breakthrough of labelmate Cindy Lee. With the dream-like strum of "Ivy," slow shimmer of "Orbital Rings" and enchanting, madcap swirl of "Blended Medal," this is hypnagogic pop at its finest. Age is the record Bob Pollard hears in his head every time he steps down to the basement to pick up a guitar. This is the sound of riding in an elevator hearing McCartney singing "Blackbird" in the distance, only to have it draw closer and closer with each floor as you finally race down the hallway, putting your ear to each door searching for the source. This is Leonard Cohen smoking in the middle of the street outside a Suicide show. If all of this sounds phenomenal, it is.”
Grouper’s Liz Harris quietly released this album of primordial soundscapes a few weeks ago under the new Nivhek alias. After selling out overnight, this new edition has now been made available via Superior Viaduct’s W.25th label.
"Opaque assemblages of Mellotron, guitar, field recordings, tapes and broken FX pedals by Pacific Northwest musician Liz Harris, created during and after two contrasting residencies in the Azores, Portugal and Murmansk, Russia and combined with pieces made at home in Astoria, Oregon. The collection’s unique dual design functions as a forked path, existing independently of one another but with roots intertwined.
She cites her score for Hypnosis Display as a compositional reference point, inspired by “interior mnemonic device landscapes” and “curiosity around a sadness.” In pacing, palette and poignancy, these sides rank among Harris’ most stark, primordial work: fragile, feverish, ominous and otherworldly. She describes this music as “a requiem, a ritual, to unlock and release feelings,” a sense of shadowy masses, moving backwards, in spirals, massive doorways opening chaotic forces, “a toxic concentrated reduction of something much darker bubbling beneath.”
Her artistry for mapping richly detailed inner worlds is nowhere more expressive and enigmatic, vibrations and voices gliding dimly out of the void, “wraithlike and ethereal, their existence in the mist questionable.”
