![]() ![]() It must have been a surprise to find him set up with a big band and wanting to record an album like that? More akin to Silkworm or Bonnie Prince Billy than Nina Nastasia in energy this time around. MEC in comparison is all guns a'blazin, brash Midwest good & honest band action. Musically, its predecessors such as Lioness or Ghost Tropic were sparse, bleak, minimal and congruent with the self examination and introspection fans had come to know and trust. MEC is such a departure in style from Song:Ohia's previous output. We had done a couple of other little short recording sessions together that hadn't really amounted to that much, I think he had ended up using some of the material and not using some of it. So it was a chance to get to work with him in a full band setting, and had plenty of time to work on stuff. So I was pretty familiar with his material and both my wife and I were big fans, and I think Jason is a unique talent, he really does have the ability to conjure up completed songs from nothing at the drop of a hat. She worked at a record store called Reckless Records in Chicago and she had written him a fan letter, and he had sent her some cassettes of some solo material, just him singing, his guitar, playing into a cassette recorder. ![]() Steve Albini: I had been aware of Jason from the beginning of Songs:Ohia and stuff, and my wife had actually written him a fan letter when she worked at a record store. Where did you first become aware of Jason Molina? ![]() Albini explains: "Nobody had really great expectations for sales, and it was a bigger undertaking than his other records had been so everybody was trying to keep the costs under control." It's a great documentary about the writing and recording of an album over the course of 2 weeks.) In the case of MEC, it was actually made in about six or seven days. (For an idea of the work ethic involved, first of all watch Josephine, a doc about the making of said album in 2009 also at Electrical with Albini. , the final recording made under the Songs:Ohia moniker to talk to him about this record and what it means to him. I spoke to Steve Albini recently, the engineer of The Magnolia Electric Co. It is music from the Midwest and/or American life (in general) illuminating and illustrating the struggles of real people with real problems - the music quite rightly, uplifting a means of escaping one's quotidian life, even if only temporarily. Songs:Ohia (later renamed Magnolia Electric Co.) were very much 'of' the Midwest, and they represent Molina as clearly embracing his cultural history. And when I say 'prolific', I mean it - he released and appeared on at least 30 recordings. He was a prolific, if troubled, troubadour, crafting songs since his teens, able to knock out an entire album of poetically ominous songs in a fortnight or while on the road, touring the Midwest. ![]() Jason Molina also died last year at the tender and alarming age of 39. It was the platform on which Jason Molina expressed some of his darkest, clearest thoughts. In our recent Reissues of the Year chart, a record made ten years ago by Songs:Ohia called The Magnolia Electric Co. ![]()
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