Welcome to the first chapter of Folkadelphia’s new project that we’ve gotten in the habit of calling Unsung. In the history of music, there are many unsung artists and albums that we firmly clutch close to our hearts. These artists create the kind of music that we wish other people knew more about or cared more deeply for. We wish that we could share with others our exact feelings about how we’ve been touched and affected by some musicians. We want to show them the light. We want to sing these musicians’ unsung song for everyone to hear. With this series, we hope we can provide a way for people to connect with music that has been influential beyond its commercial impact and, perhaps, appeal. It’s never too late to find a new favourite band and honor their legacy and discography.
For this first part, we focused on what has become one of my favourite albums: Songs: Ohia’s Didn’t It Rain, which was recorded in Philadelphia in 2002. I never knew Jason Molina nor did I ever see him perform live while he was alive. I came to his music pretty late in the game too, just a handful of years ago during my college radio stint, but I always knew there was something special there. He could create these staggeringly beautiful portraits, often just with his words, his voice, and an acoustic guitar. He could also blow you out of the water with these epic guitar-heavy unabashed rock-and-roll tracks. But he always had a dark, brooding, introspective thematic quality I found appealing. I always pondered on the fact that while his lyrics felt so personal and tied to Molina himself, they were universal, they spoke to me, they spoke to others. I guess that’s just the hand of a master songwriter. He certainly was that and a lot more too.
During my years at college radio with my self-imposed solitude in the stacks and the listening room, I stumbled upon most of the Songs: Ohia and Magnolia Electric Co. catalouge. The album I was drawn to, but never felt like I could deal with or easily absorb was Didn’t It Rain. It felt like it was in its own little bubble, a perfect world that I was peering in at, perhaps as if through a glass darkly at the time. Secretly Canadian, Molina’s longtime record label, recently reissued the album with bonus tracks and demos, and it was just last year I finally revisited the record. Something must have clicked. Maybe it’s my age, my position in life, my mourning for the late songwriter, or it was just that time, but I fell for Didn’t It Rain‘s charm. It’s charm is that is without charm; the album is a bare bones affair, stripped of sleekness, studio magic, and flair. It was recorded live in a room in Philadelphia with a handful of people, some strangers to each other, and committed to tape with almost no overdubs or editing. This sounds a lot like some of the straight up folk records I admire from the early years of recording technology. Didn’t It Rain ends up being a snapshot in time, a near-perfect capture of creativity firing on all cylinders. You don’t always need walls of sound to impress, sometimes you just need a simple chord and a harmony, followed by silence to make an impact.
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The Fat Angel Sings 