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Jun 26, 2018 By Christopher Roberts Mutual Benefit

Mutual Benefit (aka Jordan Lee) is releasing a new album, Thunder Follows the Heart, on September 21 via Transgressive. Previously he shared two songs from it, “New History” and “Storm Cellar Heart” (“Storm Cellar Heart” was one of our Songs of the Week). Now Lee has shared live videos for both songs that were filmed at his apartment by filmmaker Eric Jenkins-Sahlin. Johanne Swanson, Eva Goodman, Molly Fletcher, Gabriel Birnbaum, and Emily Reo joined Lee for the live sessions, which feature strings. Mutual Benefit has also announced some tour dates. Check out the live videos and tour dates below.

Lee had this to say about the videos in a press release: “I wanted to make a stripped-down video that captured the essence of the band. Having a bunch of friends over for dinner and then recording music together seemed like a good way to achieve that. Everyone performing has an inspiring solo project well worth checking out so I was elated that they could all join me to make these songs come alive. Hopefully the warmth of the moment comes across and not just the heat of our sweltering apartment.”

“New History” features guest vocals from Johanne Swanson (of Yohuna). Lee had this to say about the song in a previous press release: “I think people in power benefit greatly from a general lack of historic memory in the U.S. I’ve been wondering if the first step to imagining a more just world is to study our history better, not just the linear revisionist one that is oft-repeated but all the unsung champions of equal rights as well as the acts of unthinkable cruelty that humans are also capable of.”

“Storm Cellar Heart” is described in the previous press release as “an ode to taking shelter and the fraught impulse to hide from the loudness of the outside world.” Says Lee in the press release: “Writing this provided a reminder that while moments of recharging are important, I didn’t want to get too entrenched in escapism instead of the messiness of living.”

Lee was inspired by sitting through a big storm in rural New England, where, as the press release put it, he “found himself becoming transfixed by the time in between the lightning and thunder.”

In Lee’s own words: “The silence thick with inevitability. While I was writing the record, everywhere I looked, I saw massive societal strain on both people and the environment, and began to wonder if this is the lightning before some thunderous change. If we are living in that in-between time.”

The album is the follow-up to 2013’s Love’s Crushing Diamond and 2016’s Skip a Sinking Stone.

Mutual Benefit Tour Dates:

Thu. Aug. 30 - New York, NY - MoMA
Mon. Oct. 22 - Belfast, IRE - Empire Music Hall
Tue. Oct. 23 - Cork, IRE - Cyprus Avenue
Thu. Oct. 24 - Dublin, IRE Whelan’s
Sat. Oct. 26 - Glasgow, U.K - The Great Eastern
Sun. Oct. 27 - Newcastle, U.K - The Cluny
Mon. Oct. 28 - Bristol, U.K - The Exchange
Wed. Oct. 30 - London, U.K - Oslo
Thu. Oct. 31 - Manchester, U.K - Now Wave Venue
Fri. Nov. 1 - Birmingham, U.K - Hare & Hounds
Sun. Nov. 3 - Aberfeldy, U.K - Aberfeldy Town Hall (Aberfeldy Festival)
Mon. Nov. 4 - Leeds, U.K - Brudenell Social Club
Tue. Nov. 13 - Los Angeles, CA - Resident
Wed. Nov. 14 - San Diego, CA - Soda Bar
Thu. Nov. 15 - Santa Ana, CA - Constellation Room
Sat. Nov. 17 - San Francisco, CA - Chapel
Mon. Nov. 19 - Portland, OR - Doug Fir
Tue. Nov. 20 - Seattle, WA - Vera
Wed. Nov. 21 - Vancouver, BC - Fortune
Fri. Nov. 30 - Minneapolis, MN - 7th Street Entry
Sat. Dec. 1 - Chicago, IL - Empty Bottle
Mon. Dec. 3 - Toronto, ON - The Garrison
Tue. Dec. 4 - Montreal, QC - Bar Le Ritz
Wed. Dec. 5 - Boston, MA - Great Scott
Fri. Dec. 7 - Washington, D.C - DC9
Sat. Dec. 8th - New York, NY - Park Church Co-Op

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