Paradise Pop. 10 sees a profound expressionist change from Christian Lee Hutson

Not so long ago his songs read like documents of a humanities informationist. Precise dates, quotes, and doings have become an essential quality of his songwriting (See “Atheist”: “The 20th of October / Hair of the dog, blanket on your shoulder / Reading the menu in an accent”). On Paradise Pop. 10, however, the Californian artist revises his vision by writing in looser detail and devising more PoVs. Casting the net over stories set in different places and told by different characters makes it a necessary change to avoid being jam-packed, but his quasi-autobiographical rendition of the complexities of interpersonal relationships remains as profound and esoteric.

The opener testifies to all these claims. “Tonight your name is Charlotte / In a play within a play,” he half-sings, half-sighs. “She tells her husband that she’s happy / But she’s planning her escape.” The choking air of incredulous heartbreak is instantly present, culminating in the final seconds where words dissolve into a dehumanising applause: all the world to her is a literal stage on which characters are mere objects she tosses around. Much of the record relies on such creative observations, like ice cubes doing ballet in the swirling glass on “Water Ballet”. Hutson is a raconteur who introduces stories well enough to mitigate the songs’ occasionally bathetic soft spot for repeating the same line at the end.

His little narratives, or personalised sketches of the human experience, are the principal intrigue of Paradise Pop. 10. Suppressed gay love is expressed in small but meaningful moments on “Skeleton Crew” (“Boys didn’t kiss / But at the recital / I kept my eyes closed / Heard your fingers move / Over Clair de Lune.”). A sight of a partner during the long-awaited reunion delivers a thoughtful comment on “Flamingos” (“Watch you cradle a watermelon / You had a bad mom / I bet you’ll be better.”). The delicacy of his words attracts and carries the listeners through an amalgam of touching perspectives, with the intention of offering something healing and empathetic.

Paradise Pop. 10 leans closer towards renewing Hutson’s melodic world building. His production has never felt so atmospheric and intimate; what was once a meek, deadpan mirror of lyrics is now a proto-expressionist conduit for any depth of emotion. Tracks like “Tiger”, “Candyland”, and “Flamingos” feature some of his most intricate compositions and harmonious backing vocals by Maya Hawk and longtime friend Phoebe Bridgers, who once again appears alongside her drummer Marshall Vore and Perfume Genius’s frequent engineer Joseph Lorge as producers. First seen on Quitters’s “Strawberry Lemonade”, his musical transformation, if kept ongoing thus, will truly be a wonder to witness.