Cindy Lee Releases New Song 'I Want You To Suffer'

Cindy Lee is the experimental-pop project from Patrick Flegel, the former lead singer of the iconic and much beloved art-noise band Women. Their (they use gender neutral pronouns) new album What's Tonight To Eternity is out on February 14th.

Released today is the second track titled "I Want You To Suffer". As the name suggests the song covers some intensely disturbing emotional territory but like all Flegel's work has an undeniable undertow which draws you in only to spit you back out.

They tell us "I Want You To Suffer is about my feelings regarding being abused and wanting severe punishment and revenge. It is also a rumination on alienation and repression in the wake of authority figures telling you that you are insane for your entire adolescence, when you are truly just reacting to what is happening to you. As you grow older, you realize that the identity and stances that have been adopted remain part of the same poisonous framework that you had been trying to escape. In the end, all that is left is the aching desire to be loved and trusted, despite a string of failures on your part."

Cindy Lee is more than just a pop music project but rather an intimate extension of a life long exploration of recording art, the electric guitar, queer identity and gender expression. Inspired by among countless others, Kenneth Anger, Karen Carpenter and Akihiro Miwa, the new album What's Tonight To Eternity is the culmination and realization of their deepest feelings, fears and desires spawned from a lifetime overcoming severe mental health issues and gender dysphoria. "Singers like Patsy Cline and The Supremes carried me through the hardest times of my life, and also provided the soundtrack to the best times," they explain.

Flegel take their songwriting and sound to a new level with nine songs that bend further towards high atmospherics and bracing melodies, creating a unique world where splendor and sheen naturally collide with experimentation and abrasion. Delivering moments of true beauty through somber explorations of longing and loneliness, Cindy Lee is something to hold onto in a world of disorder.

What's Tonight To Eternity, is Cindy Lee's fifth long-form offering and showcases the project's most entrancing strengths --- ethereal snowdrift pop, piercing experimental moments and sly nods toward oldies radio. Recorded primarily at Flegel's Realistik Studios in Toronto, and featuring younger brother Andrew Flegel on drums on two tracks, the album travels hand in hand with a spectral guide.

Patrick found a massive inspiration for the record in the form of Karen Carpenter, drawing from her early recordings, as well as Carpenter's look and style. "I found a deep interest and comfort in her story, which is a cautionary tale about the monstrosity of show business, stardom at a young age, and being a misfit looking for connection. The darkness and victimizing tabloid sensationalism she suffered, which is easily tempered and overwhelmed by her earnest output, her artistry, her tireless work ethic. Something utterly unique and magical takes shape in the negative space, out of exclusion. What I relate to in her mainly has a lot to do with her output and what is unknown about her, how much she kept hidden to herself while having this public profile."

The album itself is a mix of conflict, hope, spirituality, identity, hidden truths, trust, self-destruction, middle class culture wars, control, artistry, work ethic, pop culture indoctrination, pain and suffering, hopes and dreams, fierce confrontations and wide-open confessional blurs. Closing with the song "Heavy Metal", inspired by and dedicated to the memory of former Women band mate Chris Reimer, and appropriately adorned with an image of two unidentifiable figures in a tormented embrace, (cover illustration from Andrea Lukic's comic "Journal Of Smack #5") the contents continue the bold and rewarding pathway Cindy Lee has taken.

Superior Viaduct's imprint W.25TH is pleased to launch 2020 with What's Tonight To Eternity, the latest work from Cindy Lee.

What's Tonight To Eternity is available for pre-order here.

What's Tonight To Eternity Tracklist:

1. Plastic Raincoat

2. I Want You To Suffer

3. The Limit

4. What's Tonight To Eternity

5. One Second To Toe The Line

6. Lucifer Stand

7. Speaking From Above

8. Just For Loving You I Pay The Price

9. Heavy Metal

Photo Credit: Vanessa Tignanelli

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