Jason Molina was an anomaly in the music world. Substituting typical industry ambition and conformity for a prolific stream of material that both resisted commercial success and defied categorization, his blue-collar craftsman approach to writing songs won over fans and fellow musicians alike. But even beyond that, there was a deep personal connection between Molina’s music and his listeners. Within those songs existed an entire world with it’s own specific lexicon and imagery – moons and shadows, wolves and owls, dark horizons and an endless stretch of highway. His words drew upon on the bleaker side of life by way of timeless symbols and icons, often as literal as they were abstract, without ever sounding contrived or passé.
With Songs: Ohia, Molina carved a unique sound – some kind of lo-fi indie rock grounded in his mid-western roots. Featuring a rotating cast of accompanying musicians, each album, single and EP took on a life of its own, showing an ever-evolving musician that could range from the haunting experiments of Ghost Tropic to the classic Americana rock of The Magnolia Electric Co, the album to which his later band owed their name.
And it was with that band that Molina achieved perhaps his greatest moments. Magnolia Electric Co. featured a steadier lineup, a group of musicians whose arrangements complemented Molina’s songs in all the right ways. They were perhaps his Crazy Horse, E Street Band or Heartbreakers. While they settled into a more specific sound, the accompaniment of the full band gave his songs the extra push to turn them into timeless classics. From the dreary roots rock of What Comes After The Blues to the beautiful diverseness of Josephine, neatly balanced between alt country and indie rock, Magnolia Electric Co. more than anything showcased Molina’s powerful songwriting.
I love this playlist, but I don’t know that it really captures everything that made his music so great. It’s probably not possible to do so in under an hour. A few major flaws are its lack of any material from Didn’t It Rain, an album I would consider one of Molina’s best, as well as the fact that it barely touches on his earlier, more eclectic albums. That said, I think this would be an excellent introduction to anyone who has never heard Jason Molina’s music before.
1. Hammer Down from Live @ Larimer Lounge - Denver, CO 4-23-2005 (bootleg)
Two drastically different versions of this song were officially released – a solo acoustic rendition on the first Magnolia Electric Co. studio album What Comes After The Blues and later an electrified full band version on Nashville Moon. This one, off one of my favorite bootlegs, plays closer to the latter, but there is something about this recording that I think gives it a little extra. Magnolia Electric Co was probably at the height of their live shows around this time, the full six-piece band gelling perfectly. The back and forth between guitarist Jason Groth and lap-steel player Mike Brenner during this period was giving the songs a jammier vibe, approaching more of a Grateful Dead or Allman Brothers feel (see the closing section of “Texas 71” from this bootleg). Both studio versions are well worth your time, but just as this song started the set on that night, it felt right to have it start this as well.
2. The Handing Down from Josephine (2009)
“The Handing Down” is, next to the Songs: Ohia live album Mi Sei Apparso Come Un Fantasma, perhaps the hardest Molina ever rocked. Mike Kapinus’ wailing organ and Brenner’s distorted pedal steel give it that extra push. Lyrically the song is full of deep imagery - “An anchor in the crown of Queen Ann’s Lace and chicory / A charm, a charm to drive away all the heartaches I gave” and “Scarecrow holds an hourglass above the crossroads for me / Filled with tears and twilight from a friends dying day / Here’s a turkey feather for his favorite hat / And a love letter from the ace of spades.” Molina was dealing with a lot of loss at the time, the now well-documented separation with his wife, but also the death of close friend and bandmate Evan Farell who had subbed in on bass and pedal steel for a tour. With those events weighing heavily on the material, there is a general underlying tone of grief to the album, felt particularly on “The Handing Down.”
3. Love Leaves Its Abusers from Axxess & Ace (1999)
In my opinion, Axxess & Ace is a pivotal point in Molina’s songwriting and it’s actually as far back as I go on this list for that reason. Not that the material before it is bad, it certainly is not, but Axxess & Ace to me represents a shift toward a more focused song. Musically “Love Leaves Its Abusers” is one of his most basic, but it goes to prove the power in simplicity. There’s a subtle shift in chords from it’s main section to its ending that pushes the piece into a desperate urgency just as he belts out the title line of the song. This album is also the first to feature female vocal accompaniment, which would become a staple of Molina’s albums for a while after.
4. The Body Burned Away from Ghost Tropic (2000)
Ghost Tropic is one of Molina’s weirdest albums. I am perhaps swayed by the name, but I have always had an image of a tropical island full of apparitions and spirits conducting incantations and sacred ceremonies to the music of this album. Ghost Tropic was produced by Mike Mogis of Bright Eyes notoriety, and it has a dark, transcendent space that runs throughout its duration. “The Body Burned Away,” as with most of the album, achieves a haunting gloominess through sparse percussion arrangements of shakers, bells and pounding drum alongside droney guitars and piano. Something of note – “No Limit On The Words” is on Ghost Tropic, the song that gave this blog its title.
5. What’s Broken Becomes Better from The Black Ram (Sojourner Box Set) (2007)
Although it was released under the Magnolia Electric Co. moniker as part of a 5-disc box set, The Black Ram features an entirely different group of musicians than the normal Magnolia band. Recorded with David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker, it is almost a sequel to Ghost Tropic in its stirring poignancy. Like that album The Black Ram features an eclectic variety of sounds, everything from harmonium and mellotron to pedal steel and nylon string guitar. But “What’s Broken Becomes Better” is one of the more straightforward songs from it. Lowery’s production has a very live feel to it, with Molina’s electric guitar pushing the red with distortion. The sounds of the band begin to blend all together as the song gets louder until it achieves that same desolate uncertainty of Ghost Tropic.
6. Being In Love from The Lioness (2000)
The Lioness is one of Molina’s most popular albums and deservingly so. It’s probably the moment that he really started to find his voice, figuratively and literally. It was recorded with Aidan Moffat of Arab Strap and Alasdair Roberts of Appendix Out, both Scottish based musicians he had befriended. While the organ accompaniment on The Lioness calls back to his earlier albums, there is a more steadiness and confidence in Molina’s singing. “Being In Love” finds him working alongside a simple drum machine beat, but as the stark chords ring out and the singer works through catchy melodies, it’s clear he has reached another level. Glen Hansard of The Frames once performed this song with former members of Songs: Ohia on Letterman, prompting the host to call Molina a “great songwriter.”
7. Such Pretty Eyes For A Snake from Trials & Errors (2005)
Trials And Errors is the first release from Magnolia Electric Co, which is interesting because it is a live album recorded while the band was touring under the Songs: Ohia name. The details surrounding the name switch are foggy, but according to Erin Osmon’s great book “Riding With The Ghost,” the decision was one Molina never even informed the band of, they read about it later online. To make it all the more strange, Trials And Errors also doesn’t feature the entirety of the group that would become known as Magnolia Electric Co. Nevertheless, the album contained a collection of at the time mostly unreleased material, about half of which would eventually receive studio recordings. “Such Pretty Eyes For A Snake” exists only in this form. It, along with a majority of the album, draws heavily from Zuma-era Neil Young and Crazy Horse (listen to the intro sections of “North Star” from this album and “Cortez The Killer” from Zuma). It’s a loud hard rocker, and even features a nice guitar solo call from Molina right before Groth goes off.
8. Get Out, Get Out, Get Out from Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go (2006)
Molina’s solo albums stand alone in his catalog. They are records that are very sparse, very dark and very deep. They can be almost challenging, yet rewarding listens when taken in their entirety. Let Me Go, Let Me Go, Let Me Go, is his second full-length solo album, one that was released under questionable circumstances. Molina had a handful of records ready to be released, but throwing five albums into the world at once is not a particularly economical business practice for a record label. The album Nashville Moon, which comprised mostly of songs Magnolia Electric Co. had been playing live, had been announced but was suddenly shelved for the release of Let Me Go and Fading Trails, a compilation album of four different unreleased sessions. It was an odd choice as it left fans wondering about the remaining songs from what were four different albums. Eventually those all would see a complete release as the Sojourner Box Set, but the decision to release those two above the rest seemed odd. Anyway, Let Me Go is a great record, particularly the B-side from which “Get Out, Get Out, Get Out” comes from. Molina’s voice is carried by loads of reverb as he wails over his guitar and a simple drum machine pattern. “I’ve lived low enough so that the moon wouldn’t waste it’s light on me” is one of his best lines.
9. Just Be Simple from The Magnolia Electric Co. (2003)
Jason Molina’s revisionist history made this the first Magnolia Electric Co. album, which would make sense since it shares more sonically with the direction he would head in with that band. But, although the earlier moniker appears nowhere on the record, it really was the last Songs: Ohia album and is still sold that way by Secretly Canadian Records. “Just Be Simple” might be one of the finest songs Jason Molina ever wrote. It’s a nice slab of country rock, and as with most of the songs on The Magnolia Electric Co., Brenner’s instantly memorable lap steel clears the way for the rest of the band. That’s not to say the song isn’t strong on its own - just listen to a solo recording of it -but it proves the importance of chemistry between musicians. Brenner, as with the rest of the members that would make up the Magnolia Electric Co. band had that chemistry with Molina. Another group of musicians that shared that chemistry are the band here backing him up alongside the steel player, some of whom had been playing as Songs: Ohia for the previous few years. According to Osmon’s book it was under somewhat contentious circumstances, but they helped shape the album that put Molina on the map.
10. The Lily And The Brakeman from Molina & Johnson (2009)
One of Molina’s last releases was a collaboration with Will Johnson of the Texas based bands Centro-matic and South San Gabriel. What really makes this album so special is that it sounds less like they each took some songs in and finished them together and more like they actually collaborated, something rare with these types of sessions. According to Will Johnson, that is exactly what happened. “The Lily And The Brakeman” features only Molina’s voice accompanied by Mike Kapinus of Magnolia Electric Co. on piano but it’s unlike anything the songwriter had ever done before. The song rests somewhere between an old-timey saloon sing along and a heart-wrenching soul number. Following their later outputs, it appears that they each had a major impact on one another’s styles, Molina becoming open to more overdubbing and instrumentation (as heard on Josephine) and Johnson embracing a bit more simplicity is his own music - both good things.
11. Shiloh from Live @ Cafè del Teatre Escorxador - Lledia, Spain
6-19-2007 (bootleg)
Shiloh is one of my personal favorite songs from the Molina catalog. It appeared originally as a solo acoustic recording on Shohola (of the Sojourner Box Set) under the name “Shiloh Temple Bell,” but got a full band rendition as the penultimate track of Josephine. I love the way the song was rearranged from its original state, given its piano intro and a capella mid section – it sounds like no other. This live version also features an excellent guitar solo from Jason Groth at the end that unfortunately didn’t make the album version.
12. Trouble In Mind (Fade To Blue) from Daytrotter Session 10-26-09
The Daytrotter Session is one of the last recordings before Molina stepped back from performing and ultimately passed away. “Trouble In Mind (Fade To Blue)” then is one of the last known songs Molina did with the full band. While it’s an incredible song, it’s also a terribly depressing one. The lyrics conjure images one could take as a prophecy of his impending struggles, an unraveling that he could never escape. The name itself is a nod to a traditional folk song that Molina and company had covered, but lyrics like “Remember me, my own true love / For the man I tried to be and not the man I was” give a grimmer tone. It’s a fantastic song, but knowing its circumstances makes it a bit of a tougher listen.
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