Songs Ohia-Didnt It Rain-(SC299)-Deluxe Edition-2CD-FLAC-2014-k4

a r t i s t :: Songs: Ohia

l a b e l :: Secretly Canadian

g e n r e :: Indie

e n c o d e r :: FLAC 1.2.1 -8 -V

s i z e :: 460.6MB
tracklist
2 Ring The Bell Demo, Working Title: 6:48

Depression No. 42

3 Cross The Road, Molina Demo, Working 5:03

Title: Chicago City Moon

7 The Gray Tour Demo, Working Title: 4:28

Waiting It's Whole Life
releasenotes



Didn't It Rain is Jason Molina's first perfect record. Recorded live in a

single room, with no overdubs and musicians creating their parts on the fly

the overall approach to the recording was nothing new for Molina. But

something in the air and execution of Didn't It Rain clearly sets it apart

from his existing body of work. His albums had always been full of space, but

never had Molina sculpted the space as masterfully as he does on Didn't It

Rain. Perhaps it is that Molina entered the session with fully written songs

that allowed this emboldened confidence in chance. The creaks and scraping of

strings are all part of the Didn't It Rain choir. So when Molina hoots for

another chorus during the album's eponymous opening gambit, it feels less an

off-the-cuff call, and more an essential piece of the tone and structure

Midway through the same song, that which takes its name from a traditional

piece popularized by Mahalia Jackson, we hear the long, low woosh of a passing

bus. Distant traffic has forever been a trope of lo-fi, but here, it is a

pristine woosh. The highest of fidelity and sure of purpose. The same can be

said for Molina's always remarkable voice, here settling into a matured

assured, and subtly lowered tenor. It all adds up to something near in mood to

Neil Young's song "On The Beach," and maybe even Boz Scagg's 1969 self-titled

album laid to tape at the legendary Muscle Shoals studio

Didn't It Rain is an ode to the Midwest Rust Belt under which Molina was born

and Molina's newfound Chicago home. When we move to a new place, we must truly

confront all our own weaknesses and strengths, and Molina puts that all on the

table with this one. The album's triple-threat center pieces come by way of

Ring The Bell," "Cross The Road, Molina," and "Blue Factory Flame." Strung

together, they present clearly Molina's specific set of mythological symbols

that had been forming on previous recordings. It is as heady a middle section

as I can recall. But the journey across these three songs -- with their

circling serpents, their neon-flame wreathed moons, their swinging blades

their debilitating emptiness -- also feels like a cleansing, a catharsis, a

sort of primal therapy

While demo'd and recorded months before the events of 9/11, Didn't It Rain

does seem to somehow consider the mood of the time. It's surely an album about

setting roots, but it also offers a moment of solace in a time of overwhelming

uncertainty. Here, Molina's now well-known battle with depression aligns with

an entire nation's moment of depression. While even more cryptic and spartan

Didn't It Rain's imagery and themes can be poetically linked to another 2002

Chicago-rooted album that tapped into the post-9/11 psyche, Wilco's Yankee

Hotel Foxtrot

This expanded reissue presents Molina's home demos of the record, eight

previously unreleased tracks, complete with a distant playground full of

children chiming in the background for a few songs. The glorious juxtaposition

of Molina's songs' desolation and the blissful playing of children is about as

haunting as it gets, friends

Eric Deines, Bloomington, IN, August, 2014
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