Head West with Magnolia Electric Co, The Donkeys, & Monahans [Sat at Mohawk]

The West symbolizes freedom and new beginnings, sure, but those who seek these things are often running away. In the West, they are met with vast, bleak terrain that seems to be the geographical portrait of loneliness. To the psychically bruised, the entire western states can seem like God’s pun on the word "rocky." This is the musical territory of Jason Molina, the artistic force behind the late Songs: Ohia and its reincarnation, Magnolia Electric Co.

Josephine, the first all new album from Magnolia Electric Co. since 2006, is a stripped and aching alt-country offering loosely wound around a narrative thread of the loss of the fictitious Josephine. But it’s also a more literal memorial to Magnolia’s former bassist, Evan Farell, who tragically died in an apartment fire during the album’s initial phase.

The tools of Molina’s choosing, including dobro and lapsteel guitars, are especially evocative of an aching loss, so its natural that Josephine be his most country influenced album yet. It’s also comparatively stripped-down, so the listener seems confronted with an empty horizon, at every turn expressing something missing. This would all be belabored and depressing- that is, if it weren’t so simply beautiful.

San Diego psychedelic country rockers the Donkeys will open the show at the Mohawk, along with Monahans, a local outfit named for the West Texas sandhills. Monahans appeared on Of Great and Mortal Men: 43 Songs for 43 U.S. Presidencies, a 3 CD collection born from a website challenging songwriters to write 14 songs in 28 days. So, in addition to the complete dusky, whisky-soaked Silverado style lineup, showing up on Saturday means you could possibly also hear a musical tribute to James K. Polk.

Magnolia Electric Co. [Official] [Myspace]
The Donkeys [Myspace]
Monahans [Official] [Myspace]