Best New Tracks - Pitchfork |  |
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Posted: 19 Nov 2013 11:02 AM PST
At first, Mutual Benefit's "Golden Wake" feels awfully fragile, little more than a persistent click, a wriggling organ, and Jordan Lee's crumbling falsetto. Seeking strength in the "Golden morning hours," a newly unemployed Lee heads toward the water, but this sojourn's quickly interrupted by a glimpse of something lost just under the surface. Mind now racing, Lee takes a second to catch his breath, then another; if he can't outpace these rushing thoughts, maybe he can slow down enough to let them pass. "Golden Wake" is a song about the memories we can't shake, "the tyranny of the minute hand," the responsibilities that follow us everywhere whether we want them to or not. "We weren't made to be this way," Lee sings, and if he doesn't sound too sure about anything else, he certainly knows that much. After a rocky start, "Golden Wake" ends awash in piano and strings; seems whatever Lee'd been seeking, he found it down by the water. |
