By the time Lee’s career began to properly take off in Australia (via 1998’s Breathing Tornados LP), he already had three solo albums and the Noise Addict LP under his belt meaning that many at home are still in the dark as to the circumstances behind his remarkable rise to fame. By the end of that same year, Noise Addict had been signed by the Beastie Boys’ Mike D to Grand Royal Records in America (home to the Beastie Boys’ own releases, along with those of Luscious Jackson, At The Drive In and Biz Markie, among others), while garnering enough overseas exposure to make even the biggest bands down under deeply envious (i.e. Pavlovic was impressed enough to send Noise Addict’s demo tape to Thurston Moore and so it was that a 14-year old Ben Lee suddenly found himself signed by Steve Pavlovic and supporting Sonic Youth during the Sydney leg of their 1993 Australian tour - all within a month of forming his first band. This rise to indie prominence was almost instantaneous - after forming a band called Noise Addict in early 1993, Lee & his Moriah College school mates played a low-key gig at a library book sale in Sydney an event that for some reason just happened to be attended by Steve Pavlovic, who was still 5 years away from launching Modular (but already boasting an intimidating list of connections through Fellaheen). Just a few years into his adolescence, Lee was already touring internationally (whenever school commitments would allow) with his high school band Noise Addict, while also rubbing shoulders with the likes of Lou Barlow, Thurston Moore, Mike D, Liz Phair, Pavement & Fugazi. Long before ‘Cigarettes Will Kill You’, or ‘Catch My Disease’, or those infamous albums where he sang about Islam for kids and the benefits of Ayahuasca, Ben Lee held status in the USA as something of a lo-fi wunderkind, riding an early/mid-90s Outsider Music wave stirred up by the likes of Daniel Johnston & the Reivers. Although the tune could never avoid being described as ‘cute’, the curveball appearance of Liz Phair nudges the whole thing beyond novelty into something properly enjoyable. It definitely sounds like a song sung by a kid, but there is a disarming honesty and sophistication to Lee’s songwriting and his 4-track recording technique that makes ‘Away With The Pixies’ a surprisingly endearing listen.
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‘Away With The Pixies’ is a solid reference point to the ‘precocious’ nature of Ben Lee’s talent as a teenager (to selectively quote Bernard Fanning).