Even though it’s only early January, we’re going to humbly suggest that Mutual Benefit might be the sleeper show of the year. The Boston-based project’s officer-in-command—songwriter Jordan Lee—has been drawing some pretty heavy comparisons with his debut release, Love’s Crushing Diamond. Think Sufjan Stevens before he started producing clattering industrial-Berlin soundscapes. Or Devendra Banhart once he realized that, by cleaning up his act a bit, he could start attracting A-list talent like Natalie Portman. Based on tracks like the California sunset–hued “Golden Wake”, the world might be onto something. And if Lee manages to recreate even a bit of the soft-focus anti-folk brilliance of Love’s Crushing Diamond when he plays the Cobalt next Tuesday (January 21), you really need to be there. If only because you’ll get the chance to say “I Saw Mutual Benefit” before anyone. Including that guy who won’t shut up about how he was there when Sufjan Stevens played that downtown-Vancouver church when nobody even knew his name.