Jason Molina

Molina told Pitchfork recently that the album is also about "dislocation" and itinerancy: "I just wanted to try something sonically more on the minimalist side, and I think that we succeeded. And lyrically it's definitely a song cycle where I revisit over and over and over again certain themes much more than I have in other records. "

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In a poignant, confessional move, Molina announces: "Sometimes I forget / how I've always been sick / and I don't have the will to keep fighting it"; the flipside of this sorrow is that rare ability to see the Kingdom of Heaven right around you: "I think the stars / are just the neon lights / shining through the dancefloor / shining through the dancefloor… / of Heaven, on a Saturday night / I saw the light…" It's a gorgeous moment.

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"I've been touring since I was a teenager," says Molina, 32, something of a year-round road warrior whether with his band or solo. "Geography to me is a symbol," he explains. "You have some writers that write characters into their songs, or they even are a character within their songs. I've never written music like that, so the symbolism of the landscape, the road and these horizons to me are very real things, the tools I use to interpret the world."

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