Love’s Crushing Diamond is the name of Mutual Benefit’s first studio release from 2014, and is a prime introduction to his ethereal soundscape–songs that are a romantic and watery indie-folk. His tracks are supported by other like-minded musicians contributing their musical talents to help shape Mutual Benefit’s music into a highly buzzed about release that had critics raving. Songs like “Advanced Falconry” and “C.L. Rosarian” are the “must listen on repeat” tracks–although his whole album is pretty much like that, too. It’s a record that reflects his endless sense of wandering (since he jumped a lot from city to city), but it also explores what it means to settle down, too.
On his second album from 2016, Skip a Sinking Stone, you’ll still find singer Jordan Lee delivering that same mesmerizing tone as before–especially with his wind chime-infused introductory track called “Madrugada” that feels like you’re in some kind of beautiful dream that you never want to wake up from. But his voice isn’t as watered down here. It’s front and center. And his music just seems “bigger” and with more purpose. On “Skipping Stones” which is one of his more powerful tracks he sings, “But in solitude we’re often chased by the truths we are afraid to face, and it takes more than just a fleeting dream to set us free.” And you feel it. He makes you feel it.
What first started as an indie project for Jordan Lee (specifically around the time he found himself living in St.Louis, which was after Boston and before New York), has now become something so much bigger. But regardless of his success in the world of indie rock, playing shows that are a bit more low-key and DIY is just way more his style. And what’s more low-key and DIY than an underground performance space like Silent Barn in Bushwick?
* ($1 of every ticket sold will be donated to No More Deaths–an organization whose mission is to end death on the US-Mexico border.)
Silent Barn
3/2
w/ Crosslegged, Spookfish, Boosegumps
8 p.m.
$10
silentbarn.org
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