The Red and Black

Issue date: 9/20/07 Section: Out & About

Media Credit: Courtesy Magnolia Electric Co. Songwriter Jason Molina (far right) and his latest band, Magnolia Electric Co., released a four-CD boxset entitled "Sojourner" in August. [Click to enlarge]

If songwriter Jason Molina were ever reincarnated as an animal, he'd most certainly be a wolf.

That is, a lost and lonesome wolf howling at a ghostly moon shining through the black of night.

Anyone who's ever listened to Molina's music, first under the solo-driven moniker Songs: Ohia and now with the hard-rocking men of Magnolia Electric Co., knows his proclivity for all things lupine as well as all things lunar.

With song titles like "Memphis Moon," "Nashville Moon," "Spanish Moon Rise and Fall," "And The Moon Hits The Water" and "No Moon On The Water," Magnolia Electric Co.'s latest release fits nicely with the Ohio native's past, both sonically and lyrically.

"Moons, owls, wolves and ghosts have always been part of the vocabulary I use in songs and internally to decode and understand the world," he explained. "In many ways, what is broadly and sometimes lightly described as the afterworld or even its population to me is something real."

The appropriately titled "Sojourner," a four-CD boxset complete with a poster, DVD, postcards and a pewter medallion all designed by Molina himself, unfolds like a journey through that same ethereal afterworld.

For listeners, that makes for a sometimes stark, sometimes lush but always gorgeous affair. As for Molina, well, fans can only imagine his tortured writing process and be thankful he keeps putting pen to paper, voice to song and car wheels to the gravel road.

On "The Road Becomes What You Leave," a short film included in the boxset, Magnolia Electric Co. battles boredom, monotony and the harsh Canadian winter as Molina and his four band mates tour across the prairie provinces in a single Econoline van.

"The film does a good job showing what touring can be, but not everything," he admitted. "I love the isolation and the tactile loneliness of the endless work and travel, and playing music for people who love these songs."

On the reverb-drenched "Black Ram," the boxset's standout disc, Molina writes "from the point of view of a ghost wandering the earth alone."

Somehow, that's not too hard to imagine, coming from a man so haunted by the spectral side of life.

With Molina and company in town Saturday night, concertgoers best beware - a full moon's not due for another week, but there just might be wolves on the prowl.

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