Stream: Christian Lee Hutson, ‘Talk’

Kevin Bronson on May 28th, 2020

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Christian Lee Hutson at the Teragram Ballroom in March 2019 (Photo by Jessica Hanley)

* Post updated with full album stream

Quiet inner dialogues imparted over pristine guitars do not a rock star make, but they become the stuff of legend, and Christian Lee Hutson is adding another chapter to his this week.

The Santa Monica native’s first album for ANTI- Records, “Beginners” (out on Friday) is the culmination of years of making sparse, elegant folk-pop (“bummercore” was the word he used) that took him from Southern California to Nashville and back. Hutson released his first album in 2012 and his second, made with Grammy-nominated producer David Mayfield, in 2015. And, having spent years as one of those collared-shirted guys opening a show who stops crowds in their tracks, this album figures to shine a brighter light on his understated but consistently revelatory music.

Indeed, Hutson’s profile has risen over the past year and a half or so — he was exactly that guy when Conor Oberst and Phoebe Bridgers toured their Better Oblivion Community Center album (he co-wrote two songs on the album and played in their live band as well as serving as an opening act). He also co-wrote “Ketchum, ID,” one of the songs on the EP by the Julien Baker-Bridgers-Lucy Dacus project Boygenius.

Bridgers serves as producer for “Beginners,” which also features string arrangements and horns by Nate Walcott of Bright Eyes. Hutson lays bare his own frailties (with some well-aimed shots at others’) with both sadness and humor, and often so deadpan it hurts. “Life’s just a real slow death / Yep, that’s what I was taught / OK, so I care a lot / I’m a chip off the old block / ’cause I’m all talk,” he muses on “Talk.”

Way back in 2014 when he was about to release his second album, Hutson described himself as a work in progress, and that hasn’t changed … because does it ever? “I went with ‘Beginners’ as the title because that’s where I feel like I am in my life — like I’m still just learning and trying to figure out how to navigate the world,” he says, adding, “I want people to feel like it’s OK: we’re all here fucking up all the time; we’re all just learning and living, and it’s going to be all right. I don’t even know if I fully believe that, but it’s the voice I always wished I had in my life.”

The latest video, for the humorous “Get the Old Band Back Together” (directed by Michael Tyrone Delaney), features cameos by Oberst, Phoebe Bridgers and Sharon Silva. Oberst and Silva, as well as Meg Duffy of Hand Habits, Anna Butterss and Marshall Vore, play on the tune.

“Old Band” is a lighter moment on an album that, while restrained, is anything but one-note. “Northsiders,” released a year ago, has a droll afterburn, and you’ll swear that “Lose This Number” is trying to break your heart.

It’s no surprise that Elliott Smith is one of Hutson’s inspirations; “Beginners” will resonsate with fans of Damien Jurado, Ron Sexmith and Ethan Gruska’s debut “Slowmotionary” as well.

In the album closer “Single for the Summer,” Hutson sings: “Things are gonna turn around any day now.” Whether he fully believes that or it’s a voice he wishes he had, it’s the perfectly graceful end to “Beginners.”

||| Stream: “Talk”