Album Notes

Over the past two years The Brook Lee Catastrophe has built a steady and enthusiastic following with a sound that is at once lush and intimate. Anchored by the classic folk-rock lyricism of veteran Southern California singer/songwriter Brook Lee, “the Catastrophe” – violinist Paul Mitchell, guitarist George Madrid, bassist Ryan Nakata, and drummer Mike Duncan- paints a musical landscape that counterpoints and enhances Lee’s words, filling in the picture with instrumental brushstrokes that merge the traditional with the experimental.

As the second full-length album released in under a year, The Weight of Waiting finds the band delving deeper into their established sound and mining previously untapped influences. The album emerged fully formed after 5 days with producer Rick Parker whose extensive credits include The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Dandy Warhols, & Miranda Lee Richards to name a few. The resulting tracks capture the vitality of a band deeply immersed in a process of musical exploration and self-discovery.

The fruits of this exploration can be heard in songs like “Compressed Black Carbon & A Digital Divide”, in which the almost spoken poetry of the lyrics recede into the abstract musical poetry of the song’s second half. “Everybody’s Asking” makes a crafty move into pop territory, counter pointing Lee’s downbeat lyrics with a musical confection evoking Elvis Costello and Van Morrison.

At the center of the album, the spare and meditative “Constellations I” coils its ruminations like a spring finally bursting forth into the striving anthem-like “Constellations II.” Elsewhere, “A Devils Truth” offers an upbeat tale of a deadbeat dad in a country-and-western key, and Lee steps back to his solo acoustic roots for “Big Nothing,” a two-minute character sketch that’s as incisive as it is concise.

At the heart of The Brook Lee Catastrophe’s music is a voice that speaks the truth to sorrow and articulates an idealism that persists beyond youthful naiveté – a realist’s idealism, one that refuses to be corroded by life’s slings and arrows, redoubling its conviction as it stands defiant against a sea of troubles.