Songs: Ohia
Ghost Tropic

Like a solitary journey in the Nebraska desert.

This 2000 album sounds a bit like that, and the band's compositional approach, which is essentially embodied by Jason Molina alone, is similar to the experience of walking in an American desert at 40°C in the shade, with only a guitar in hand and recording the infinite sensations, the sounds hidden by the wind, the noise of the cracked earth, the echo of distant bells, the flight of gulls (vultures?) in search of any destination. Molina's rock-folk-ambient moves slowly and sinuously, as if it were the soundtrack of this Wim Wenders-like desolate and melancholic journey, beautiful and desperate, composed of silences savored like fine wine and supported by an underlying fragility that makes it a true milestone of the genre.
Eight songs, if we want to call them that, long and expansive, that pleasantly linger on you like sand in your shoes or sea salt on your skin.

I saw him 4 years ago, almost by chance, in a smoky and decadent venue in Rome, him alone, armed with a guitar, and it was a truly enchanting and captivating concert, with all that the term means in this context. No encore, no thanks, no self-referential speech. Jason left that same evening in a semi-battered van, once again on his journey toward other horizons of rocks and sand. A great one.