An idea hit me at some point this past week. I’d been obsessively listening to a particular band when it struck me that their music summed up a geographic area. And of course this particular thought set this post in motion.
My project over the next few weeks will be to paint a map of America with acts to associate with particular regions of the land. By this I do not mean, song titles about specific places, but the body of work as a whole. The images and country evoked by their songs. Obviously this is a highly subjective assessment so I look forward to receiving suggestions, disagreements, etc.
The first such swathe of geography will be covered by Magnolia Electric Co (aka Jason Molina, aka Songs:Ohia).
Jason Molina crafts these understated yet deeply meaningful songs that never seem so on the surface. The listener hears the guitar, the somewhat limited but emotively sonorous voice, and the lyrics sort of float on by our ears. It is, however, those lyrics that can easily float past you that hold the true weight of Molina’s music, no matter the moniker he chooses to attach to it. He paints worlds with his words, ones that are dark and deeply fatalistic. A musical manifestation of the spirit of someone like Flannery O’Conner.
While the author’s world centers around Georgia, Molina’s only begins there. His swathe of America begins in the northern hills of Georgia, at the base of the Appalachians. He creeps north along the mountain range before tumbling out in the plains of western Pennsylvania. It is here that his world heads west and south, through the Ohio valley and across the rust belt before spilling out into the funny colored grasses of Kentucky and being submerged by the creeping waters of the Mississippi River.
Musical Map of America
An idea hit me at some point this past week. I’d been obsessively listening to a particular band when it struck me that their music summed up a geographic area. And of course this particular thought set this post in motion.
My project over the next few weeks will be to paint a map of America with acts to associate with particular regions of the land. By this I do not mean, song titles about specific places, but the body of work as a whole. The images and country evoked by their songs. Obviously this is a highly subjective assessment so I look forward to receiving suggestions, disagreements, etc.
The first such swathe of geography will be covered by Magnolia Electric Co (aka Jason Molina, aka Songs:Ohia).
Memphis Moon Mapped
06-memphis-moon.mp3
Magnolia Electric Company – Memphis Moon
Jason Molina crafts these understated yet deeply meaningful songs that never seem so on the surface. The listener hears the guitar, the somewhat limited but emotively sonorous voice, and the lyrics sort of float on by our ears. It is, however, those lyrics that can easily float past you that hold the true weight of Molina’s music, no matter the moniker he chooses to attach to it. He paints worlds with his words, ones that are dark and deeply fatalistic. A musical manifestation of the spirit of someone like Flannery O’Conner.
While the author’s world centers around Georgia, Molina’s only begins there. His swathe of America begins in the northern hills of Georgia, at the base of the Appalachians. He creeps north along the mountain range before tumbling out in the plains of western Pennsylvania. It is here that his world heads west and south, through the Ohio valley and across the rust belt before spilling out into the funny colored grasses of Kentucky and being submerged by the creeping waters of the Mississippi River.
07-talk-to-me-devil-again.mp3
Magnolia Electric Company – Talk to Me Devil, Again