Ben Lee - Hey You. Yes You

Mixing two seemingly unrelated things together is a favorite past time of human beings: peanut butter and jelly, pro-athletes and rap, shoulder pads and women’s suits. This also applies for rock and roll. On Hey You. Yes You, Ben Lee, Australian singer/songwriter in the acoustic indie-pop vein, is paired with Gorillaz/Dr. Octagon producer/remix-er extraordinaire, Dan “The Automator” Nakamura. The mix seems odd at first, and the resulting collaboration is just what you’d expect from two talented, but very different, people pooling their resources - uneven. First, let’s go with the negatives. Many of these songs sound forced. The “dirty beats” Nakamura provides at times seem completely un-complimentary to the songs they back. On the ballad-y “Chills,” the repetitive beat does little to enhance the melancholy-love-song-to-be. “Music 4 the Young and Foolish” is a semi-pretentious attempt to show off Nakamura’s scratching and sampling skills, with a title so ridiculous you would think it came from a limpbizkit album. The album’s closing number, “Still on the Line,” features a distractingly annoying delayed drum hit during the verses that takes away from the beautiful vocals that should be in the foreground. That all being said, Lee and Nakamura shine quite a bit also. “Aftertaste” sounds like a more focused Gorillaz outtake, and is one of the more organic sounding tracks on the record. The introduction to “Dirty Mind” bears a striking resemblance to Lee’s former label mates the Beastie Boys during their Check Your Head period but grows into a very interesting, catchy track. “Shine” has a low-key charm that is unmatched throughout the record and bears more resemblance to Lee’s previous record, Breathing Tornados. However, the real highlight is “No Room to Bleed,” a track that blends Lee’s yearning voice and jubilant piano with Nakamura’s break beat seamlessly, proving that these two seemingly unlikely bedfellows can indeed work well together. [www.ben-lee.com]