Mistress of Strands

condition (disc/cover): M / M

The first Mistress of Strands release, issued in 2000 on Ventricle, the Seattle imprint devoted to the female voice and part of the extended Dusty Lee universe. For this project Lee (sound collage, Mellotron) partnered with Tali Braun (vocals) and Dana Devereaux (strings and things); Treva Dea is absent, which makes this the first Lee project not organised around her voice.

The record belongs to Ventricle's "silver series," packaged in a distinctive metallic sleeve. Musically it sits between ethereal and ambient without reducing to either: crystalline strings, alluring but slightly unsettled vocals from Braun, Lee's characteristic Mellotron-based drone beds. Compared to Mauve Sideshow, the texture is more instrumentally precise (Devereaux's string contributions replace much of the electronic bed of the earlier projects), and the voice, rather than diffusing across the mix, tends to hold a clear foreground.

Part of what that popsike review once called the "linked series of American darkwave outfits" Lee has orbited, Mistress of Strands adds a third voice to what had already been a Lee / Dea duet through Mauve Sideshow. A small, patient, very carefully made record, and one of the late crystallisations of the Houston-to-Seattle lineage Lee has been cultivating since the Kangaroo Kourt days.