Trials & Errors

Jason Molina decided to put his cryptically titled Songs: Ohia band to rest and start again as the equally unusually named Magnolia Electric Co. The band’s debut turns out to be a live album recorded in Brussels, 2003, with tunes from the Songs: Ohia days (“Ring the Bell,” “Cross the Road”) and tracks from the then-unreleased studio debut album, *What Comes After the Blues*. The full-band setting fleshes out what were once lonely, isolated tunes and frees Molina to sing with a vibrant looseness and indulge in his Neil Young fantasies with plenty of bucking electric guitars shoring up the primitive pounding rhythms. “Dark Don’t Hide It” sets the tone, while the nearly nine minutes of “Such Pretty Eyes for a Snake” pushes forth with an urgency that bleeds from the guitar notes and Molina’s anxious, delicate vocals. While nothing can compete with the eerie, controlled austerity of the recording studio to create the pressure-cooker atmosphere that Molina’s tunes require, the adrenaline of the live performance adds its own driving edge.

The first official release from the Jason Molina-led four-piece Magnolia Electric Co. is appropriately titled: It's a live album that finds his new group working out the kinks-- and aping Crazy Horse.

Trials & Errors was recorded at a live show one night in Brussels in 2003, shortly after Jason Molina had put Songs: Ohia to rest.

I was introduced to Jason Molina's Songs: Ohia in the spring of 1998, one of a crowd of about 14 college kids curious enough to stroll to the campus bar...