Christian Lee Hutson Quitters LP

Vinyl LP pressing. 2022 release. Christian Lee Hutson starts Quitters with a laugh. In this follow up to his ANTI Records debut, Beginners, Hutson moves away from a focus on growing up to the dread and complications of growing older. Written under lockdown, the laugh that announces Quitters is the kind you'll find at the end of John Huston films, one of resignation and release, and somehow a cosmic laugh that says "California," a place where lonely people gather together like birds. If every great record is a world, then this is Christian Lee Hutson's world. It's one filled with the fuzzy haze of a dream, and the half-remembered moments of a forgotten life. It's a record brave enough to say, "In the good old days, when times were bad." But beyond the songs, it is this voice. The voice of someone who was alive in 2021 and recorded a group of songs with his friends for us to hear.

Like anyone who uses first-person pronouns to tell compelling stories, Hutson invites the suspicion that these sad sacks, lost souls, hopeless drunks, and ex-boyfriends are all versions of himself. His laconic voice makes him inscrutable: You can't quite tell if he's denouncing you, pledging his undying love, or apologizing. What registers most clearly in his songs is weariness - every character on here confesses some version of it, whether it's the friend who sometimes wished he'd just 'randomly die' on 'Sitting Up With a Sick Friend' to the character who stops a no-holds-barred fight with a partner to observe, 'There's an eyelash on your left cheek/I wanna tell you, but you're yelling' on 'State Bird.' All great writers are magpies and thieves, and all great writers are left alone at the end of the day. Hutson slips in and out of these people's skins like a cat burglar, stealing away from each one with something irreplaceable.