I Like __ A Lot
Ten Years of The Lioness
Hey, so this year is the tenth anniversary of The Lioness, a seminal album by countryish indie-rockers Songs: Ohia, whose frontman is the estimable Jason Molina (who also fronts Magnolia Electric Co.). Molina’s best, I think, are elliptical, sinister love songs, with which he stuffed The Lioness from front to back. His songs are heavily symbolic, studded with violent images, etc.–just listen to the songs I’m posting below (but don’t watch the videos–they’re just still images of the band), won’t you?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXsFkRBsAF8
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVvdx7eY1sc
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=malJUMz2A9Y
P.S. That third song isn’t from The Lioness, but it’s one of my favorite songs ever.
P.P.S. The new Joanna Newsom album is something special.
Tags: arizona, Music, music is great!, racism, six flags, songs: ohia, working out
A great album by a mutual favorite. Thanks for sharing this, Alec. Cheers.
A great album by a mutual favorite. Thanks for sharing this, Alec. Cheers.
‘two blue lights’ by songs: ohia is one of my favorite songs, probably
the new joanna newsom is out?
‘two blue lights’ by songs: ohia is one of my favorite songs, probably
the new joanna newsom is out?
Yeah Molina is great and he has a ton of albums out. Would you mind picking of of the lines you find “symbolic”? For a further discussion?
Yeah Molina is great and he has a ton of albums out. Would you mind picking of of the lines you find “symbolic”? For a further discussion?
Molina works frequently with a fairly discreet set of symbols or images, which he invokes and combines to various effects and in the service of various goals over the entire course of his career. These include: the moon, ghosts, various incarnations of electricity/energy/lightning, darkness or the dark, the desert, apocalyptic visions of the industrial (especially mines), and pyramids just to name the first several that spring to my head. If you’re a Peter Markus reader, you might reasonably look at Markus’s use and re-use of brothers, mud, lighthouses, fish, &c. as a somewhat (don’t want to overstate the case here) analogous project in prose– where the symbols are concrete images, but are clearly designated as totemic or incantatory words by the author. The reader is left free to unpack these symbols as she will. I find this kind of project fascinating, and would be glad to discuss it with you furher–Alec, too, I don’t doubt. Another example we might look at is Beckett’s use of the letter M–and its inverse, the W.
Molina works frequently with a fairly discreet set of symbols or images, which he invokes and combines to various effects and in the service of various goals over the entire course of his career. These include: the moon, ghosts, various incarnations of electricity/energy/lightning, darkness or the dark, the desert, apocalyptic visions of the industrial (especially mines), and pyramids just to name the first several that spring to my head. If you’re a Peter Markus reader, you might reasonably look at Markus’s use and re-use of brothers, mud, lighthouses, fish, &c. as a somewhat (don’t want to overstate the case here) analogous project in prose– where the symbols are concrete images, but are clearly designated as totemic or incantatory words by the author. The reader is left free to unpack these symbols as she will. I find this kind of project fascinating, and would be glad to discuss it with you furher–Alec, too, I don’t doubt. Another example we might look at is Beckett’s use of the letter M–and its inverse, the W.
Hold On, Magnolia
Hold On, Magnolia