Mutual Benefit, Holy Spirits - Mutual Spirits (2013)

The collaborative project of singer/multi-instrumentalist Jordan Lee, Mutual Benefit blends folk, psychedelic pop, and experimental recording techniques into fragile, hopeful songs that evoke the work of Sufjan Stevens, the Microphones, and the Antlers. Mutual Benefit made its full-length debut with Love's Crushing Diamond, which spent three weeks on Billboard's Heatseekers chart upon its release in 2013. Subsequent releases like 2016's Skip a Sinking Stone and 2018's Thunder Follows the Light built upon Lee's tranquil chamber pop style. After re-imagining Vashti Bunyan's Just Another Diamond Day in 2019, Mutual Benefit returned with 2023's wistful Growing at the Edges.
Lee grew up in Columbus, Ohio, and began writing songs inspired by the likes of Elliott Smith while still in high school. After graduation, he moved to Texas and took his music in a more experimental direction, incorporating field recordings and found sounds into his songs. While in Austin, he started writing and recording under the name Mutual Benefit, but it wasn't until relocating to Boston that the project began to gain some momentum. Mutual Benefit's first release, 2009's Figure in Black, set the D.I.Y. tone that would characterize much of their early output. During a prolific period between 2010 and 2011, Mutual Benefit released a succession of digital EPs including Drifting, Spider Heaven, I Saw the Sea, and The Cowboy's Prayer. After this, Lee began assembling several years' worth of audio he recorded between Austin, Boston, and St. Louis, Missouri into what would become Mutual Benefit's debut album, Love's Crushing Diamond. A warmhearted set of songs responding to the hard times many of his friends were experiencing, the album saw a limited release in October 2013 by Brooklyn-based micro-label Soft Eyes. Its guests included, among others, singer Julie Byrne and violinist Jake Falby. A wider release came at the end of the year courtesy of Other Music Recording Company, by which point Love's Crushing Diamond had become something of an indie breakout, charting on Billboard's Heatseekers chart and picking up critical accolades. A remastered, physical version of The Cowboy's Prayer followed in 2014.
While touring behind his debut album, Lee began to write his follow-up effort, eventually completing the songs and the recording after settling in New York City. The resulting Skip a Sinking Stone saw release with Mom + Pop Music in May of 2016 and followed a similar sonic trajectory to Mutual Benefit's debut. Recorded in Brooklyn and Boston, Thunder Follows the Light followed on the Transgressive label in 2018, fusing tranquil, pseudo-orchestral indie pop with themes of hope, struggle, unity, and the environment. Along with returning collaborators like violinist Jake Falby and guitarist Mike Clifford, it featured newcomers such as vocalist Johanne Swanson (Yohuna), saxophonist Gabriel Birnbaum (Wilder Maker), and drummer Felix Walworth (Told Slant).
Following a 2019 full album cover of British folksinger Vashti Bunyan's 1970 classic Just Another Diamond Day, Lee remained quiet until mid-2023, when a pair of Mutual Benefit singles heralded the release of a new full-length, the wistful Growing at the Edges. Arriving on Transgressive in October of that year, it featured Birnbaum as Lee's first-ever co-producer, and string arrangements by Concetta Abate. Players on the album's delicate country- and jazz-inflected chamber folk included Birnbaum and Abate, drummer Sean Mullins (Wilder Maker, Katie von Schleicher), bassist Nick Jost (Wilder Maker, Baroness), and guitarist Jonnie Baker (Florist) in addition to prior collaborators like singer Eva Louise Goodman (Nighttime) and flutist Noah Klein.