Pitchfork

An art rocker with a denim workshirt and a pretty romantic view of the national landscape as an outward manifestation of inner turmoil, Jason Molina gets further lost in America on Sojourner, a behemoth box set that features four new Magnolia Electric Co. albums, a DVD, poster, some postcards (hopefully from this motel), and a medallion. Yes, a medallion. It sounds like overkill, especially from an artist who does slow and spooky so well, but these four albums-- which were recorded in five locations with a total of fifteen musicians-- reveal the nuances in his particular style.

Starting off in the southwest, "Texas 71", from the Nashville Moon disc, is a lonely stretch of straight road with a gracefully peaking coda off in the distance. Steve Albini's production is loose and mostly invisible, drenching the song in stately steel guitar, subtle organ, and drum taps suggesting the rhythm of highway lines.

Continuing the road trip, Molina stops briefly in West Tennessee for "Shiloh Temple Bell", from Shohola. The song is just him and his acoustic guitar. It's not as bleak as Let Me Go Let Me Go Let Me Go, but his voice and his strums stretch against the bounds of the tape, fuzzing out at their loudest and lending the song a sense of frustration, like Molina is singing about some long-lost cause-- perhaps even the Lost Cause.

We'll stop our northwesterly progress in West Virginia for "Kanawha", a track from The Black Ram. Produced by David Lowery of Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker fame, the song sounds as spare as anything Molina has recorded, despite the spiky guitar and skittering snare drum. His vocals sound slightly off from the music, as if the two elements are emanating from different sides of the same mountain, united by a nebulous sadness and a stirring guitar solo.