October 28, 2011

Album Review: Baby Dee - 'Baby Dee Goes Down To Amsterdam'

Bringing cheer to the sleaziest of backstreets

Album Info

Release Date: November 4, 2011
Producer: Baby Dee
Label: Tin Angel
Fact: This live album was recorded at the Amsterdam Bimhuis

7 / 10 “Aren’t you nice to be clapping when I haven’t even done anything?” trills Dee at the start of this recording from an Amsterdam jazz club. In truth, she’s done plenty this last 10 years, carving a cultish niche, turning her hand to everything from fraught balladry to cabaret frippery. Here, she rips through a catalogue stuffed with velvety finery (‘The Robin’s Tiny Throat’) and camp melodrama (‘Big Titty Bee Girl From Dino Town’) like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Capping proceedings with an ode to incontinence (‘The Song Of Self-Acceptance’) could verge on whimsy, but Dee could bring cheer to the sleaziest of backstreets.

Ben Hewitt

Rate this album

Average rating

9.7

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