The Ghost

THE GHOST is a dark affair. As a matter of content, its themes are bleak, on the verge of total blackness. Loneliness, alienation, desperation, and dark, anxious nights. As a matter of atmosphere, the album is even darker. Surface noise has never been so important to a record’s mood and tone. Yes, it sounds like it was recorded on a highway, but this is a dark fucking highway at a lonely, desperate hour and the only set of keys you have are those to the car that won’t take you any closer to home. It’s dead and you’re scared and totally alone. It’s just such an occasion that Jason Molina sings and plays of in a roundabout way on THE GHOST.

Recorded in one day direct to Jason’s boom box with the tiny little microphone, this brand new batch of songs was written in a very short period in the early months of 1999. For Jason fidelity was never an issue, in fact it was a tool. The boom box’s inefficient battery-powered motor is just as integral to the recording as the vocal and guitar performance that occurred that February afternoon in Jason’s room on his day off of work. This recording may be noisy but it is not a demo. It was made available in limited quantities — ONLY 500 PRESSED!!! — to be sold on the Songs: Ohia tour of the East Coast with Drunk in the Spring of 1999 and the European tour in the early Summer 1999.