I recommend that you stop everything else in order to take this in properly. Between its carefully constructed narrative and emotional richness, “Golden Wake” is pretty much a pop folk masterpiece. Mutual Benefit’s Jordan Lee uses a confusion of instrumentals (including organ, strings, piano, and layered percussion) to give the effect of grasping at something you can’t quite seem to reach — in this case, memories that will always linger.
It’s an experiment in the power of recall, beautifully opened by Lee softly singing, “And in the water I could see a piece of what you broke in me.” What begins in a moment of bittersweet memory gradually builds into a climactic frustration of time’s refusal to pass, “Sometimes my heart and brain conspire / to set everything on fire / just to stop the tyranny / of that minute hand on me.”
“Golden Wake” comes from Mutual Benefit’s recently released debut album, Love’s Crushing Diamond. If you like what you hear, go check it out. The record is equally as heart wrenching.