Customer Reviews

Magnolia Electric Co

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you've read my previous reviews, you're probably familliar with my method of buying albums: wandering around Amoeba records for hours, then deciding on some random album because it has a really neat cover (and if I'm feeling especially critical - cool song titles). This has resulted in a few poor choices, which I'll leave to your imagination, but also some gold nuggets, and this record is one.

I should point out that I'm a big fan of nocturnal, atmospheric music with a distinctly rural-american tinge, and that pretty well describes this album. My knee-jerk classification (if that kind of thing matters to you) would be to say alt-country, but lumping Songs: Ohia in with the like of Whiskeytown and Son Volt doesn't quite gel, especially given the strong blues influence throughout.

To dive into more specific analysis, let's break down the record into its components. The voices jump out immediately. Jason Molina leads the pack, singing lead on three quarters of the albums eight tracks. He channels Neil Young to an extent; they share the same kind of drawling intensity, but whatever comparison you want to make, the sound is still a remarkably pleasant one.

The voices on the remaining two tracks are a mixed bag. The male vocal on 'The Old Black Hen' (I THINK this is Lawrence Peters, based on the breif liner notes, but I'm not positive) pours it on a little thick for my taste, but bigger fans of a classic country (definitely an applicable term on this track) might dig it more than I do.

Scout Niblett's vocals on 'Peoria Lunch Box Blues' on the other hand, steal the spotlight. Her turn here is a slow, blues drenched number with a subtle melody sung in a smoky vocal, not unlike Cat Power's Chan Marshall, but in a higher register and with a bit more force and confidence than Chan usually puts forth. It's positively mellifluous (I've been looking for an excuse to use that word all week).

The sonic canvas over which all of this occurrs is comprised of twanging electric guitars, (the kind where you'd expect to see a lit cigarette placed in the head), madolins, lapsteels, organs, and thrumming basses.

'John Henry Split My Heart' is as forceful a rock number as you're likely to find in this kind of setting, with distortioned guitars churning over a pounding bass drum that connotates the intensity of the steel-drivin man - that is until it drops off into a piano solo only to build back up again. 'Just Be Simple' is a low tempo, relatively laid back, melancholy rumination. 'Farewell Transmission' opens the record with a clean guitar and builds up to a dramatic conclusion that ends with the command "listen!" 'Hold on Magnolia' on the other hand, is a slow ballad right out of a barroom in the old west that ends the record on it's sweetest moment.

The lyrics are... well, they're there. They're not really the focus; no passages come to mind that are brilliant enough on paper to be really worth mentioning, but there aren't any cringe-worthy moments here either. Mostly they fit the tone and atmosphere of the music.

And that's the biggest deliver about this album: it's atmosphere. Actually, given that, listening to this is probably bad for my health - it makes me want to smoke a few ciggys, drink some gin and wallow in the poetry of my own sadness for 45 minutes of a warm summer night. So if that sounds like your kind of thing, then you'll enjoy this, and even if not, it's still worth at least a listen. Four stars.

...not long enough. That's my only complaint about this masterpiece; it seems to go by too quickly, too quickly for the long spring twilight drive through the desert which it should accompany. There are so many voice-prints in the music singing through Jason Molina and his conspirators on this record: Gram Parsons, Neil Young, Alex Chilton, Don Williams, Hank Williams, old REM, Dylan, Olson-era Jayhawks, Enrico Morricone. But to say it sounds quite LIKE any of these people would be a disservice. It is much more than the sum of these suggestions. It's a very distinct critter from the other work of Songs: Ohia, but in an organic, not jarring way. It rocks much harder but still haunts you as much much as anything on "Ghost Tropic." It's impeccably sequenced. You keep waiting for the filler song; the song that breaks the mood, and the album is over before you've heard it. While the record is short the songs are niiice and loooong. They linger with you, not letting you go, like a cute and crazy drunk chick at a VFW hall wedding dance in Riverton, Wyoming. She might even be the bride, and you're thinking about taking her home as she rasps along with Ferlin Husky "...wings of a snow white dove..." and cries softy in your ear... Man, you're on you're OWN about her, but I can tell you, should take this album home with you. Then hit the road...

READ THIS BEFORE YOU BUY THIS ALBUM!! PAY THE EXTRA MONEY AND GET THE JAPANESE IMPORT. Why you ask? Because it has a bonus track titled "The Big Game Is Every Night." As with the other eight tracks that are on the US release, it is incredible. ALSO FIND AND PURCHASE THE VINYL. Why again you ask? Because the vinyl or lp version includes a bonus CD of Jason Molina's acoustic versions of the the of the entire album, even the bonus track. Even if you don't have a turn table, the fourteen or so bucks you spend on it will be worth the nine track CD you get. After roughly two months of continuous listening, I firmly believe that this is a landmark album in music. If there was any justice in today's world of musical mediocrity, this artist and album would without a doubt be the recipient's of numerous Grammy's.

***UPDATE***
02/17/07
I am still loving this album. Jason Molina is an unacknowledged talent that deserves to be recognized.

Songs: Ohia's "Magnolia Electric Co" truly has a soul of its own. I have been listening to this album at least once a day for well over a month. Jason Molina and company had already stunned fans and critiqes with the 2002 release "Didn't It Rain." "Blue Factory Flame" is the song that turned me on to Songs: Ohia and I only wish I had discovered them earlier. "Magnolia" is filled with music that has a haunting presence and lyrics as honest as the day is long. "I put my foot to the floor to make up for the miles I've been losing, I've been running out of things I didn't even know I was using" and "You'll never hear me talk about one day getting out, Why put a new address on the same old loneliness" are just a few of the well turned phrases that Molina delivers in his shakey, yet soulful, Neil Young-esque voice. While six of the eight songs have Molina as primary vocalist, two songs have new Songs: Ohia players stepping up to take on lead vocal duties and singing Molina-penned songs. Lawrence Peters takes the lead on "The Old Black Hen" with his fantastic Merle Haggard-esque country croon and Scout Niblett appears courtesy of Secretly Canadian records on "Peoria Lunch Box Blues." "Magnolia" was recorded live and in its entirety by Steve Albini at his Electrical Audio Studio in Chicago.

The sweet heaven that is Songs: Ohia descends once again to earth in Magnolia Electric Co. This album is quite good. Farewell Transmission introduces us to one of the best albums I have heard this year, and one of the most wonderfully crafted songs ever. Its musical atmosphere and intensity mixes brilliantly with the bluntness of Molina vocals. There is a Lou Reed-like matter of factness in his vocal that lends the tune a tone of honesty.
Again this album favors quality over quantity as it incorporates all the dynamics of a good 12 track album into seven. It shines both musically and lyrically. Like My Morning Jacket, there is a huge vareity of style that makes the album quite robust and a wonderful listening experience. Will Oldham-like vocals contrast greatly against the modern country voice in The Old Black Hen. This is a very important moment in the album, as it reminds us what we are missing in the contemporary country tradition. Presented to us are two very different characters. The voice of Molina is wavering, equivocal and sometimes off key, while the vocal on Black Hen is certain and hyper-masculine even in its lament. This is what makes Songs: Ohia, MMJ, and Oldham so good. The voice is unsure and humble, and and it allows the lyric to be expansive and encompassing rather than individual and "mannish".
Anyway, despite all that mumbo-jumbo, this album is very, very good as is anything by this band...Buy it, Buy it...and...Listen!

There is a tendency upon first listening to a favorite artist's new album, to hate it for not sounding like the artist's earlier work.Ê It's called backlash.Ê Remember when Courtney Love found Fleetwood Mac?Ê No?Ê Exactly my point.

For longtime fans of Songs: Ohia (the primarily vehicle of Ohio-raised, currently Chicago-based songwriter Jason Molina),Ê the first spin of Magnolia Electric Co. will be something of a shock.Ê As the delicious description on Secretly Canadian's website attests, this record rocks, balls out.Ê Unless you count the limited edition live import "Mi Sei Apparso Come un Fantasma" no other Songs: Ohia disc sounds quite like this.

In a way, the surpriseÊ shouldn't be a surprise.Ê Over the years, Molina has moved steadily away from creaky Appalachian bedroom folk towards something more broad and iconoclastic.Ê Each of the last five records (Molina is damn prolific) has been a departure from the next, including 2000's tropical, haunting, and appropriately titled "Ghost Tropic" and last year's elegaic "Didn't It Rain," featuring Jim and Jennie (of bluegrass Pinetop fame).

Now on to Songs' songs-- after a few bars of snaky pedal steel guitar "Farewell Transmission" kicks of the proceedings withÊ a bang.Ê "Mama here comes midnight with the dead moon in its jaws." Indeed.Ê Molina is a man of obsessions--lyrical themes stretch across the Songs: Ohia canon: moons, birds, skylines, vast expanses of colors black and blue.Ê He's been exploring these themes for a while, but on "Magnolia" there is vigor and power that makes the lyrics punch out a little further.

"I've Been Riding With the Ghost" follows--sounding the perfect accompaniment to a night drive past cornfields and burned out midwestern industrial towns.Ê It's definitely the most aggressive number on the most aggressive Molina album.Ê "Just Be Simple" is simply gorgeous.Ê Read some Cormac McCarthy while the record's on, or watch "The Last Picture Show" with the volume muted. Molina singsÊ "You'll never hear me talk about one day getting out/Why put a new address on the same old loneliness?"Ê Just try answering that with your best indie rock wit.Ê Ha! You can't.

Molina really changes the formula on "Old Black Hen" and "Peoria Lunchbox Blues" inviting guest lead vocalists (a twangy Lawrence Peters on the former, Secretly Canadian chanteuse and excellently named Scout Niblett on the latter). It's a bold move for an established, beloved act--and after the intial wonder of the idea, the new voices are actually unobtrusive in the context of the album.Ê "Old Black Hen" is a country weeper, shuffling along with slideguitar, fiddle, and a ghostly background vocals from the whole band, including the aforementioned Jennie Bedford.Ê I was playing it at work whe someone asked of Lawrence Peters, "Is that Jay Farrar?"Ê God no, thank you very much.

"Peoria," with Niblett's voice leading the charge, manages to be both ghostly and sultry. "John Henry Split My Heart" comes next, reviving some of the opening track's lyrics on its way to achieving a pulsing grandeur worthy of its title.Ê Finally, "Hold On Magnolia" rounds out the set with a delicate melody and easy grace.

If you've made it this far--you can tell I like this record enough to talk about it a lot.Ê This could very well end up being my pick for record of the year, another notch on the belt for the Songs: Ohia franchise, another old friend to keep us company through long North American winters.Ê

Can I give it seven stars?
I didn't even realize I had a spot that couldn't be touched by anything except Magnolia Electric and Didn't it Rain. This went on for six weeks. This album is amazingly hypnotic. It's expansive, honest music with lyrics that remind me what it is like to be the human I already am. The time has come to leave the Palace...

This album kicks ass. Sons:Ohia gets down to its southern roots with this amazing feat of musical genius.Throughout there are poetic lyrics, raunchy slide guitars and interesting arrangements. The album highlight is without a doubt "Farewell Transmission" where frontman Jason Molina orchestrates a seven minute southwestern anthem, spitting out such lyrics as "Some one must have set them up/ now they'll be working in the cold grey rock/ now they'll be working in the hot mill steam/ now they'll be working in the concrete," and "Mamma here comes midnight with the dead moon in his jaws/ must be the big star about to fall," and conducting multipart vocal harmonies. The rest of the album is solid to say the least,. This album is an easy transition from folk acts like Niel Young and Will Oldham as well as modern Southern rock groups like the Silver Jews. This is my favorite album right now, and it will be yours too. So buy this album. NOW!

I expected to be "over" it by now, but I listen to MAGNOLIA all the time, and I've finally come to realize that it's a classic--like OK COMPUTER or AEROPLANE OVER THE SEA. Not that it sounds remotely like either of those albums; it's just a similarly unified, similarly dense musical statement. It's also a great point-of-entry for Jason Molina's other records, which I (ever the latecomer) have been collecting since hearing MAGNOLIA. Get caught up with this artist, if you haven't. You'll thank yourself.

Its absurd to think that Britney Spears can sell millions of albums and this outfit can't be heard on any radio station in the country... Its no wonder music cant be defined by the lack of appreciation shared by the corporate America running our society and drowning our kids minds in pop culture rap and bubble gum country music (if you want to call it that)... Magnolia/Songs Ohia/Jason Molina can only be appreciated by those who appreciate the fact that music requires talent. It sickens me to think I found this by accident from a play list posted by another band I love Katatonia... My spectrum of appreciation ranges from black/death metal old country---to this kind of stuff.... Yet the radio provides me no inspiration at all.. I wish we could go back in time and fix this mess.... Magnolia is to say the least worth supporting so check it out...