Doesn't get any better than Didn't It Rain [Archive] - Audio & Video Forums

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Davey
07-03-2006, 02:39 PM
Songs: Ohia, Jason Molina. I wonder how many artists are around today that could go into a studio, or in this case an old abandoned factory in Philadelphia converted into a studio, and record something live like this? No overdubs, everyone playing together within arms reach of one another, sharing microphones, natural reverb, no compression. Beautiful music. Neil had his After The Gold Rush, and a couple others for sure, and Jason has his Didn't It Rain. Definitely one of the best of the 2000's in my view.

Help does not just walk up to you
I could have told you that
I'm not an idiot
I could have told you that ...

I know that serpents will cross universes to circle around our necks
I know that hounds will cross a universe to circle around our feet
They're always close
Always so close
Step by step, one's beside me, to kill me or to guide me
Why wouldn't I be trying to figure which one out
Why wouldn't I be trying to figure which one out

Steve Phillips: "This record follows on from 'Ghost tropic', right? What is different on this album in terms of personnel and players, and where your head was at when it came together?"

Jason Molina: "The approach to 'Didn't it rain' was to have a record that somehow showed a coming to grips with Chicago. It is a record that is a sort of broken down love song all the way through. It is about the physical soot and rusty sparkle that this place has and the deep learning that I have had here. I just took some song ideas and presented them to musicians who never heard the material, and we didn't rehearse or worry about it; we tried to just sit down and drink a lot of boiled coffee and made good music together. The singer on the record with me, Jennie Blackbird, she is a dear friend from over ten years ago. I used to watch her wonderful bluegrass band and sometimes we would do shows together back then, and I always knew we would meet and do something important as a duo. I saw her band a year ago or so in Texas, and went to a late night after show jam with her, and we put into stone the idea to meet in Philadelphia to do an old school record where side A would be almost all acoustic, and side B electric, and really, that is what happened."

Steve: "The production on the album is especially rich and resonant, your vocals are crisp and clean and the harmonies are beautiful. Did you produce this one yourself?"

Jason: "Basically I told Edan Cohen -the brilliant guy who recorded it- to make it sound real and live. We just didn't f~*k with anything, didn't compress anything, didn't add anything, just sat around in a little circle and pushed 'record'. There are loads of technical things that a modern ear would have wanted to correct, or to isolate, but the bleeding through of the sounds in the room into the microphones, the strange echo of the brick walls in that slummy neighborhood made it sound as authentic as it is in my opinion. So to answer you, there is no production really, just a sympathetic set of players and recordists".