Andrew DuncanMutual Benefit
Love’s Crushing Diamond
Other Music Recordings
★★★
Love’s Crushing Diamond is not so much an aural journey for the listener as it is a journey for Jordan Lee. He has lived a transient lifestyle, moving from Ohio to Austin to Boston to New York. Along the way, he has gained companionship from various musicians and friends to create the beauty that lies within of Love’s Crushing Diamond.
Like a fickle Asian folk tale, the album starts with “Strong River.” Yet this song is never suffers the trappings of pure traditionalism. A closer listen and I’m not sure there was any intention at all. In fact, you will find no traditional values from Mutual Benefit. The album naturally flows. These songs are brought up from older values.
“Golden Wake” is the perfect movie soundtrack realization with the concordant chords that beat down like the weight of the world wash away behind you and Lee is proving here that he indeed does move on. A nice song, it’s one of the more typical songs on this album.
Mutual Benefit – Live on KEXP
Gorgeous strings flutter on “Advanced Falconry” like a bedroom confessional built on imagination and dreamy imagery. Lee’s vocals haunt us with mystery and creates a vision that is as translucent as it is majestic.
A gentle ode to C.L. Rosarian, the song is like a soft homage to this person. “… And sometimes beauty isn’t hard to find, when you’re around to ease my troubled mind.” That’s the way Mutual Benefit shines is when Lee acts like the Robert Browning of our time.
Lush, beautiful and enchanting, Mutual Benefit presents songs at face value. Jordan allows soft textured folk pop in a traditional musical concept. The strings blend. The banjo is uses contemplative reservation. Everything is put in its place like a fitted glove, and that’s the ideals Lee should want you to walk away with.