A composer of film, TV, and game music, indie soul songs, and funk-fueled electronica, producer/multi-instrumentalist
Shawn Lee embarked on his eclectic career in music in the late '80s, completing his first solo LP in 1996, though it never received an official release. In the 2000s, he found homes for his solo material on labels such as Ubiquity and Wall of Sound and formed
Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra. He also released albums with
Clutchy Hopkins, and began taking work composing scores, including for the video game Bully (2006).
The Ping Pong Orchestra continued into the 2010s as
Lee formed psychedelic soul group
the Electric Peanut Butter Company with
Adrian Quesada and the indie electronic duo
AM & Shawn Lee. Meanwhile, highlights of his periodic score work included the documentaries Elevate (2011) and Let It Soul (2018).
A native of Wichita, Kansas,
Lee relocated twice in pursuit of his music career, first to Los Angeles, California, where he polished his skills and worked with
Jeff Buckley, and then, in 1995, to London, England. After his would-be debut album, Discomfort, was only released as a promo in France the following year, he eventually partnered with the Wall of Sound label to issue a series of singles and his official debut album, 2000's
Monkey Boy, a set of off-kilter funk and soul. Ubiquity Records released a series of instrumental breakbeat collections by
Lee called Ape Breaks beginning in 2002, with Ape Breaks, Vol. 5 arriving before the end of 2003. The label also put out Music and Rhythm, his first of many albums as
Shawn Lee's Ping Pong Orchestra. The orchestra followed up with Moods and Grooves in 2005 and Strings and Things in 2006. Some of the music was created to be used in film and television soundtracks, including Desperate Housewives and Malcolm in the Middle. Also in 2006, the 2004 Japanese solo release Soul Visa was issued in the U.S. via BBE. A year later, Voices and Choices, which included a track from Ubiquity labelmate
Nino Moschella, saw release and was followed by
A Very Ping Pong Christmas: Funky Treats, the musician's take on seasonal favorites. The year 2008 brought the musically globetrotting
Miles of Styles, along with Clutch of the Tiger, his collaboration with producer
Clutchy Hopkins. A second
Hopkins collaboration, Fascinating Fingers, arrived in 2009 shortly before
Soul in the Hole. The latter was a collaboration between
Lee and a number of vocalists, including
Darondo,
Nicole Willis,
Paul Butler,
Karime Kendra, and
Orgone's
Fanny Franklin.
Lee kicked off early 2011 with the album
World of Funk with
the Ping Pong Orchestra. As implied by its title,
Lee (with his beats, multiple instruments, and samples) took on the music of the world, playing everything from sitar to ektar, balaphone, steel drum, and udu, just to name a few. In addition, he enlisted help from Brazilian vocalist and multi-instrumentalist
Curumin,
NOMO's
Elliot Bergman, and British/Egyptian singer
Natacha Atlas, among others. In 2011,
Lee also collaborated with singer/songwriter
AM for the album
Celestial Electric.
Tabla Rock, his own exotic song-for-song remake of
the Incredible Bongo Band's Bongo Rock album, arrived in early 2012 on Ubiquity.
Reel to Reel by his
Ping Pong Orchestra came out in mid-July of the same year, followed by Synthesizers in Space just a few weeks later. Not slowing down his prolific release schedule, in 2013
Lee once again paired with
AM for the album
La Musique Numerique, and his project with
Adrian Quesada,
the Electric Peanut Butter Company, issued Trans-Atlantic Psych Classics, Vol. 2. A year later, he contributed to the KPM library album project
KPM: New York Trouble/Electric Progression. Golden Age Against the Machine, a tribute to rap music of the early '80s through the mid-'90s, followed in 2014. The remix album Skeewiff vs. Shawn Lee saw release in 2015, as did
AM & Shawn Lee's third LP together,
Outlines, and -- confusingly --
Vol. 1 of
the Electric Peanut Butter Company series.
The Ping Pong Orchestra returned with Techstar in 2017. Still working from time to time on music for TV, film shorts, and games, he wrote the score for the documentary feature Let It Soul, which premiered in 2018. In late 2019,
Lee released Rides Again, a collection of soulful Americana and his first album to feature vocals in over a decade. ~ Marcy Donelson & Thom Jurek