Didn’t It Rain

Not completely driven by this list (but certainly helped by it), I have been on a folk/Americana/alt-country music kick lately.  Yes, I still listen to rock ‘n roll regularly, but I have found myself very intrigued by the richness of the music.  Fleet Foxes and Gillian Welch certainly contributed to my enjoyment, as well as artists such as Abigail Washburn, Steve Earle, and Uncle Tupelo.  I wouldn’t call any of these as dying music forms, but you typically do not hear these songs on regular radio very much, if at all.

One name that I have come upon while doing this blog is Jason Molina.  One of his music projects, Songs: Ohia, has two records on this list.  I recently listened to Didn’t It Rain and was immediately drawn by its spirit, its sparseness, its richness.  Molina himself has an interesting background.  He played bass guitar for various heavy metal bands in his home state of Ohio, but eventually he decided he wanted to release his own material.  This sound deviated sharply from the metal he had been playing.  Molina released ten LPs and four EPs under the Songs: Ohia moniker.

# 160 – Songs: Ohia, Didn’t It Rain (Metascore = 85)

Didn’t It Rain opens with the title track, a quiet piece with Molina on vocals and guitars and Jennie Benford providing backing vocals.  You really feel like you are sitting in the room with Molina singing this song, his voice the loan sound (for the most part) to be heard in a hollowed out, abandoned house that had been around for decades.  Midway through the song the pace picks up slightly, and Molina’s guitar is accompanied by mandolin, but the mood stays the same.  Despite the storm that’s over them, Molina perseveres through it and offers a helping hand to his fellow but careful not to cover his own back.

The vibe in “Didn’t It Rain” carries throughout the record.  As he progresses through “Steve Albini’s Blues” to “Blue Factory Flame”, Molina’s mood grows darker and darker.  This seems to peak in the two-song suite of “Ring the Bell” and “Cross the Road, Molina”, where Molina sounds like he’s pouring his heart out on the ground, drained from the crumbling of an emotional breakdown.  “Blue Factory Flame” is like the post-fallout point, where he’s looking at himself, where he lives, and convinced of the inevitable doom that sits in front of him.

There is a quiet intensity throughout this record, something Neil Young-ish about the record, like Harvest or the acoustic moments in After the Gold Rush.  The music is very bare boned early in the record…mostly Molina strumming his acoustic with occasional accompaniment via banjo or mandolin (few percussion instruments appear on the record; the percussion comes from the strumming).  Starting with “Ring the Bell” and carrying through the rest of the album, the music has a broodier electric sound to it, something more akin to “Cortez the Killer” or “Down by the River”, but still dark and intense.

I must say I was transfixed by the sound of this record.  The raw emotion that Molina bleeds into the lyrics and music made this a really interesting listen for me, especially on a rainy day here.  Did it blow me away?  No, but it certainly has given me another record to consider buying.