“Heavenly cosmic Americana” – MOJO (4/5)

Jordan Lee has spent the last few years bouncing around the indie underground, from Ohio, to Texas, to Boston, and Brooklyn, running the wonderful Kassette Klub label, touring with his friends’ bands, and leading an amorphous project called Mutual Benefit, a one man band or a sprawling collective, depending on where he is and who is around that day.

After self-releasing two limited Mutual Benefit cassettes and playing scores of house shows in any living room that would have him, Lee completed his proper debut album of lush, watery, pop songs, pieced together over the past several years and inspired by the kinetic energy, goodbyes, and blurred landscapes of life on the road.

While these songs are the brainchild of Jordan Lee, this album was very much a collaborative effort, with contributions by friends Virginia and Cameron of Cry Guy, Marc and Cory of Lizard Kisses, and many other weirdoes met along the way.

The songs are heartfelt and emotional, with Lee’s fragile and beautiful voice as the centrepiece of a set of powerful and woozy love songs. The recordings are an instantly engaging blend of high and low fidelity, mixing lush studio productions with field recordings; keys, guitar, violin and banjo with clattering homemade percussion and found sounds.

Lee was planning to self-release the record on cassette when some friends in Brooklyn offered to start a vinyl label and press up 250 LPs, which seemed perfect until, on the strength of a Bandcamp posting, the blogs started blowing up about the record, and it became clear that ‘Love’s Crushing Diamond’ needed a wider release. Other Music Recording Co. were thrilled to step in, not a moment too soon as the album became the first ever Bandcamp release to be named Pitchfork’s Best New Music, while still almost totally unavailable to a wider audience.

The LP format comes with a download code for both the album and a bonus EP, ‘The Cowboy’s Prayer’.

“Seven gorgeous, baroque-folk songs, dealing in perhaps the most pervasive and difficult internal battle of all: how can you be a loving, patient, warmhearted and unfailingly hopeful person” – Pitchfork (Best New Music)