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::k4:
a r t i s t :: Songs: Ohia
t i t l e :: Didn't It Rain
d a t e :: 2014-00-00
l a b e l :: Secretly Canadian
g e n r e :: Indie
s o u r c e :: CD
b i t r a t e :: 709 kbps avg
e n c o d e r :: FLAC 1.2.1 -8 -V
t r a c k s :: 15
p l a y t i m e :: 89:44
s i z e :: 460.6MB
tracklist
Disc 1
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1 Didn't It Rain 7:52
2 Steve Albini's Blues 5:52
3 Ring The Bell 6:11
4 Cross The Road, Molina 6:01
5 Blue Factory Flame 8:30
6 Two Blue Lights 2:15
7 Blue Chicago Moon 6:47
Disc 2
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1 Didn't It Rain (Demo) 6:57
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)
4 Blue Factory Flame (Demo) 8:20
5 Two Blue Lights (Demo) 3:03
6 Blue Chicago Moon (Demo) 6:32
7 The Gray Tour (Demo, Working Title: 4:28
Waiting It's Whole Life)
8 Spectral Alphabet (Demo) 5:05
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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Songs_Ohia-Didnt_It_Rain-(SC299)-Deluxe_Edition-2CD-FLAC-2014-k4