MUTUAL BENEFIT - ODETTA HARTMAN

“Jordan Lee brings a watchmaker’s precision to a baroque sound typically associated with billowy grandeur”

For singer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jordan Lee, who has recorded as Mutual Benefit since 2009, the title of his expansive fourth studio album, Growing at the Edges, is many-layered. The title took on another dimension as Lee actualized his desire to grow his range as a songwriter, pianist, and collaborator. Written over the span of five years, the seeds of Growing at the Edges took root with two artist residencies that allowed Lee time and space to experiment, to spontaneously explore, and to live inside his emergent songs.

Stuck at home in 2020, Lee found comfort in New York’s many jazz and classical radio stations, which moved him to investigate wider musical possibilities, slowly developing his ear towards new phrasings, harmonies, and ensemble textures, and inspiring exploratory nightly piano sessions of his own. Growing at the Edges envisions an arc of transformation that begins within and ripples outward. It invites the listener to go beyond prescribed paths.

ODETTA HARTMAN

New York singer-songwriter Odetta Hartman is back with her new single, “Goldilocks” which arrives alongside a stunning visual piece, directed by Bao Ngo. The new track comes as the latest to be lifted from Hartman’s new album, Swansongs which is out March 22 via Transgressive Records.

Following her debut mini-LP 222 and 2018’s Old Rockhounds Never Die, which saw her touring her unique performance style, part Jack White rock and roll folk blues, part electronic experimentations, with the likes of Let's Eat Grandma, Cosmo Sheldrake and Skullcrusher, Odetta returns with her strongest set of songs to date on Swansongs - another fever dream of a record including the experimental pop of "Goldilocks", the dramatic string lead single "Dr No." and her radical re-working of the traditional "Motherless Child" first made famous by her namesake Odetta.