Stadiums & Shrines
Currently viewing the tag: "Mutual Benefit"
Dreams of Bali with Advanced Falconry

 

Proportion does not exist here; where shapes are known to change, and avatar-reincarnates blaze with radiance, delicately fetching whole mountainsides. Where the inanimate are granted life if the wind, as it arcs across, strikes just right.

A draft curved over the many shoulders and heads cluttering the quaint shop. Greeting this, the keeper arranged her orchestra from memory. Lining the circle: the outermost rows of children, further in, the eldest men, and at the center, an empty space. Without instruments, the youngest ones simply joined the crickets, humming. Others brushed against pipes and poured cups of sand from side to side.

Lanterns flickered…candles sputtered. And with one last blink came two eyes, exceptionally round, expressive, framed by the darkness alone.

____

Mutual Benefit is beloved stargazer Jordan Lee. Love’s Crushing Diamond is the title of his LP due out later this year. And SXSW is where he’ll be next month.

What a combination—Mutual Benefit and Philip Seymour Hoffman—two EPs, one 32 minute tape; cue the burst, with philosophical sparks raining. The excerpts alone are too luminous to circle just once, to take in from any one angle: Jordan sings of Midwestern road trips, Roy Roger’s Epitaph, and the great unknown—ideas as big as the open plains. And then there’s Noah, at infinite howl, sending aural postcards to the loving universe, narrating his own critical consciousness, clarity and discovery, with ears unblocked.

Mutual Benefit | Backwards Fireworks
Philip Seymour Hoffman | Ear Wax Blocked Ear

The full split arrives mid December. Hear “Auburn Epitaphs” over at Head Underwater.

 

Wrapping us around the edge of the darkest curve, Holy Spirits’ latest seaside reflection gets pulled into deep, symmetric motion by the illustrious BriAnna Olson. A hypnotic development, this fusion seems immediately fitting and, like great videos tend to do, surely inseparable from here on out.

Heads up for those in the neighborhood: tomorrow night is the record release show for HS and Mutual Benefit at Glasslands, with support from Moon and Lands and Peoples. Hope to vibe w/you there!

 

The bonded energy between Mutual Benefit and Holy Spirits that swirled up the west coast a few months back has now blossomed into new form: a split 12″ on Father/Daughter Records appropriately titled Mutual Spirits, and a show in its honor. S&S is truly stoked to be hosting this night with Popgun at their trademark haven, Glasslands, on June 8th. And not to be missed, Brooklyn’s Moon and Baltimore’s Lands and Peoples will be adding sets of their own. More details and RSVP at FB.

A first look and listen into Mutual Spirits (arranged by Nathaniel Whitcomb, naturally), above.