You wait years for one sexually ambiguous artist to come along, then they all appear at once. Not that Baby Dee is a newcomer of any description – to say that the transgender artist has had an interesting life is something of an understatement. Born in Ohio in 1953, she found local fame as a street performer in the‘90s, riding around Manhattan on an oversized tricycle whilst playing a harp – but not before she’d spent ten years as the musical director of a Catholic church, and embarked on a stint as a Coney Island freakshow’s ‘bilateral hermaphrodite’.
Her friendship (and collaborations) with Antony Hegarty eventually led to an encounter with Will Oldham and his erstwhile co-conspirator Matt Sweeney, and the folk demi-Gods take up production duties on this, Dee’s third album.
Thematically, Safe Inside The Day isn’t a million miles away from Hegarty’s I Am A Bird Now, although the songs are certainly more outlandish; tales of a confused childhood, encounters with exploited albinos and three legged-cats, and sweet, poignant instrumentals all feature. Musically, these are piano ballads either splashed with a whimsical dose of vaudeville (‘The Earlie King’), tumbler-slamming bar jaunts (‘The Only Bones That Show’) or torch songs supplemented by a tender string section (‘You’ll Find Your Footing’).

Key Track: ‘The Dance of Diminishing Possibilities’