Chris Lee

In the first half of the 1990s, indie-rock singer, songwriter and author Chris Lee, originally from North Carolina, played in the alt-country outfit Pine State Boys while also contributing pieces to the publication Tuba Frenzy. Once he relocated to Brooklyn, he assembled the folk/improv collective Mishagas and began contributing articles to both the Wire and Spin. Around the same time he started composing more emotionally direct pop material that sat outside Mishagas’s improvisational frame; after testing a handful of these pieces in solo performances, he cut his debut self-titled album alongside Home bassist Brad Truax and Andrew Barker, drummer of the Gold Sparkle Band. Misra Records issued Chris Lee in the middle of 2000. The follow-up Plays and Sings Torch'd Songs, Charivari Hymns and Oriki Blue arrived the following spring.