Columbus, Ohio's Jordan Lee's in the guise of Mutual Benefit ushers in a wave of downcast Folk on latest album Growing at the Edges. In all honesty it's not so much a matter of 'growing' quite so much as gently curdling, petals folding in on one another sadly, deciding they're not quite ready for Spring after all. It's that kind of record.
This is highly efficient and occasionally quite beautiful stuff nevertheless. Lee martials his spring quartets and curlicues like a glass half empty conductor. It's baroque with a capital B. There isn't any laughter to be had here though. This all takes itself extremely seriously and occasionally slightly po faced, aiming its arrows at XO and Figure 8 or Michigan and Illinois but sadly falling just short of these objectives.
That's not to say there's not plenty to recommend. Much on show here for the slightly glumly inclined. This is music for Eeyores to take a Thursday off work to and watch the raindrops patter on the windows of their flats morosely as Lee casts autumnal spells.
Not an album I'm going to return to much though it's ot a bad one by any means. But I have Sufjan and Elliot when I want to experience these particular, slightly self-indulgent emotions. Growing at the Edges has its moments, but doesn't quite reach the peaks it aspires to. I'll give it seven.OK then. Seven and a half, Pitchfork fans.
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