In Hindsight: Songs: Ohia's Magnolia Electric Co. revisited

When Jason Molina died from organ failure in March – the final result of what bandmate Jason Groth calls Molina’s ‘complicated relationship’ with alcohol – he left behind an irreplaceable vacancy within the U.S. alternative country scene. While those close to Molina knew how serious his battle with alcoholism had become, it was hard for his fans to believe that, at 39, he had gone forever – although cancelled tours, and mentions of unnamed health issues, had provided hints. Beyond the sense of shock, however, it was the sheer distinctiveness of his work – both in terms of its skeletal beauty, and its idiosyncratic relationship with traditional folk and country songwriting – that made the loss of Molina feel so acute. His songs may have influenced followers in the neo-folk scene of the 2000s like Devendra Banhart and Iron & Wine, but there is an intensity and clarity to Molina’s compositions that none of his contemporaries or followers share.

A fellow-traveller with figures like Will Oldham and Damien Jurado, Molina’s uniquely mournful vocal style was first heard when Songs: Ohia surfaced on Oldham’s Palace Records label in 1996. That outfit’s spectral folk blueprint was developed over seven years, exemplifying Molina’s unblinking determination to explore the darkest recesses of love and loss. 2000’s The Lioness arguably marks the most sustained and intense realisation of this approach: recorded in Glasgow with Alasdair Roberts and members of Arab Strap, the album’s nine songs trace an almost unbearably intimate and honest dissection of rejection and desire, holding the listener transfixed.

As with most of Songs: Ohia’s output, The Lioness’ stark minimalism – its fascination with melodic repetition, and willingness to allow a single chord to hang in the air until it fades to nothing – marks it out from other indie or alternative country albums of the era, and ensures that it still sounds utterly distinctive today. For six studio albums, this approach was the hallmark of Molina’s songwriting. In 2003, however, something changed. That year’s Magnolia Electric Co. album, which saw him take on Steve Albini as an engineer for the first time, revealed a heartland country and blues strain in Molina’s songwriting that had previously only been hinted at. A few months after making the record, evidently recognising the significance of the change, Molina announced that his band would now be recording under the Magnolia Electric Co. name.

Ten years on from that transitional moment, Secretly Canadian have re-released this key document of Molina’s career in an anniversary edition. This features two additional tracks, as well as demos of almost every song, all of which are infused with an aching directness and intimacy. In retrospect, Magnolia Electric Co. clearly marks a line in the sand and a determination to move on, signalling the emergence of a new musical and lyrical outlook. Where Songs: Ohia’s bleakly drawn-out compositions often consist of little more than vocals and three or four muted electric guitar chords, played with Molina’s characteristic restraint and focus, this album announces a new direction from the outset.

The opener, Farewell Transmission, begins with a lap steel hook before launching into a Lynyrd Skynyrd-esque slab of infectious country rock, underpinned by organ and crunching guitar. Molina’s melancholy air still hovers over proceedings, but there’s a new sense of optimism in the song’s driving energy. That shift – retaining the underlying essence that made Songs: Ohia so powerful, but coupling it with a sense of renewal and rebirth – is also evident in Farewell Transmission’s lyrics. Molina’s concerns still feel characteristically cryptic and troubled, and he still has a sense of a ‘ghost breathing down [his] back’; but there is also a new sense of strength and endurance here, in lines like ‘I will try and know whatever I try / I will be gone but not forever.’

The song’s lyrical themes also reflect Magnolia Electric Co.’s musical shift: just as Molina abandons the sense of haunted, solitary introspection that pervades Songs: Ohia’s stripped-back folk, his mind is no longer fixated on lost relationships, regret and loneliness here. Instead, there’s a new belief in community and tradition, reflecting the record’s embrace of Molina’s blues and country roots. When he says ‘we’ll all be brothers of the fossil fire of the sun [...] we will all be sisters of the fossil blood of the moon’, it is clear that the gothic mystery of Molina’s earlier work has been retained, while he simultaneously explores a new sense of solidarity and collective endeavour.

None of this is to say that Magnolia Electric Co. is a straightforward, upbeat rock record. The album closer, Hold on Magnolia, brings the tempo back down over eight minutes of gently ebbing chords; in some ways it wouldn’t sound out of place on Songs: Ohia’s bleakly magnificent preceding record, 2002’s Didn’t It Rain. Even here, however, there is a new sense of empowerment in Molina’s lyrics: ‘In my life I have had my doubts’, he acknowledges, ‘but tonight I think I’ve worked it out with all them’. Similarly, an unfamiliar sense of warmth infuses the arrangements, courtesy of lap steel, violin and piano; the shift in tone from Molina’s previous record is subtle, yet unmistakable.

The sense of positivity can be overstated, of course: I’ve Been Riding with the Ghost, the second song, sees Molina ‘standing on a crossroad trying to make up my mind’, and wondering why ‘every night pain comes from a different place’. Yet in the song’s Neil Young-esque tortured energy, it is clear that musically at least, his direction from that crossroads feels clear. The trajectory embarked upon here sustained the Magnolia Electric Co. project for three further studio albums from this point, What Comes After the Blues (2005), Fading Trails (2006) and Josephine (2009), all of which retain and gradually refine the blues and country influences. Those looking for revelations of Molina’s troubled nature will see them everywhere in these records, as they will in the Songs: Ohia material. Ultimately, however, the overriding qualities that shine through are not despair and loss, but faith and endurance.