Songs: Ohia - Tigress

I can only apologise for having taken such a long time with a new post. I don't really have any excuse either, other than having been distracted by other, less important things. It's quite nice to share something I really love after such a long time of not posting, though. Songs: Ohia are not a band so much as just singer-songwriter Jason Molina, who plays with a backing band who seem to exist in a constant state of flux and rearrangement. On The Lioness album, Molina recruited Aiden and David from Arab Strap (yet another band that everybody should check out) and someone else from a band called Apendix Out, who I have never heard but are probably awesome if any of them have anything to do with Songs: Ohia.

This album was released the same year as another Songs: Ohia album, Ghost Tropic. I don't really understand why the two were not released as one double album, because there is none of that acoustic/electric two-albums-released-at-the-same-time faffing about that Bright Eyes tried - which backfired on them anyway since the acoustic album was great and the electric one was a vague mediocre attempt at re-recording their previous albums. Rather, Songs: Ohia released one of the two (I'm not sure if Ghost Tropic or Lioness came first) and then seemed to release an entirely separate but very similar album just a few months later. The latter album, whichever one that is, is almost a continuation of the former; as if Molina recorded one album and just carried on writing songs for the same record, of equal integrity and genius, and so had to release a "part two".

Anyway - I couldn't think of any words really worthy of Songs: Ohia so I googled them to see what other people had said of them and I found a review that said something along the lines of "a quasi-yodeling falsetto, bitter lyrics of heartache, lonely acoustic guitar, spare pseudo-country arrangements, stark melodrama." Cool!

Seriously - you've never heard anything in your life as tragic and starkly depressing as this. Play this on a cold grey day and you'll see what I mean. I know nothing about playing music but according to my friend, the guitar arangements are very simple, which I suppose in a sense is why this music is so beautiful; it's so simple and mournful, and free of pointless complications, that it gets straight to the point. Fans of Neil Young, Nirvana Unplugged, early blues, Jeff Buckley, and every other acoustic heart-wrenching melancholy record ever released, will adore this.

Tigress
Just A Spark

Expired