I’d never listened to much early Ben Lee until Anton and I lived together in NYC and would embrace everything about Australia more vehemently than we did at home. He’d play old Ben Lee songs for me, but I’d never heard this song until Anton put Kathleen Hanna’s cover of it on his (amazing) breakup playlist. I listen to it a few times a day and it kills me when she sings “he like Smudge and the Beastie Boys”.
Ben Lee is a genius, no matter age. ”Awake Is The New Sleep” has to be one of the best indie pop records of the last...