Browse by Artist: MOLASSES

Artist:	MOLASSES
Title:	Trouble At Jinx Hotel
Label:	ALIEN8 RECORDINGS (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$10.00
Catalog #:	ALIEN 046CD

"The fourth album from the sprawling Montréal ensemble, Molasses. This inspired example of the group's utterly original music displays the raw, world weary voice of old Americana, the freedom of improvisation and experiment, the spiritually charged atmosphere of church music, and the adventure of the avant-garde... all swirling around the musings of singer/songwriter Scott Chernoff, whose poetic confessionals have been compared to illustrious songwriters like Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Will Oldham. Molasses is music for guitars, strings, banjo, oud, percussion, piano, organ, harmonium, singing saws and voice. Trouble At Jinx Hotel is thirteen titles and ten tracks from some of North American underground music's brightest lights, featuring members of the Shalabi Effect, set fire to flames, GY!BE, Codeine, Come, Boxhead Ensemble and the Bonnie 'Prince' Billy band."

Artist:	MOLASSES
Title:	You'll Never Be Well No More
Label:	ALIEN8 RECORDINGS (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$10.00
Catalog #:	FANCY 001CD

Repressed, with redesigned jacket and booklet. Technically a self-issued CD on the group's own Fancy label, distributed via Alien 8. "Dubbed folk actuelle -- a genre fusing traditional North American folk aesthetics with the free ethos of musique actuelle. Molasses' influences include electro-acoustics, rural country & blues, hobo composition, contemporary noise, trash punk, abstract jazz and street poetry. But for everything that informs it, the music is a unique and unusual invention from a group of musicians at the vanguard of underground music in Montréal."

Artist:	MOLASSES
Title:	Trilogie: Toil and Peaceful Life
Label:	ALIEN8 RECORDINGS (CANADA)
Format:	CD
Price:	$10.00
Catalog #:	FANCY 002CD

"A celebrated Canadian playwright, expatriate of Michigan's 1960s art underground, wrote upon hearing Molasses for the first time, '...art from the heart...freight trains derailing in the back of somebody's head while bones rain down from the overpass and cats tied to tin cans tumble over the grating.' That description, with allusions to movement, confusion and din, is an apt introduction to the music that comprises the second Molasses release, Trilogie: Toil & Peaceful Life on Fancy. Following Molasses' acclaimed debut, You'll Never Be Well No More, these recordings are lush proof of the band's unique vision, bruises and all. More bleak, beautiful music: the strange signature marriage of folk-noir with order and disorder, improv and noise; mystery and minimalism with enormous orchestral violence; acoustic and electric instruments creating movements that tie the organic to the experimental; vocal drone and broken poetry which answer Chopin's adage that 'nothing is more odious than music without hidden meaning.' Trilogie: Toil & Peaceful Life takes the first half of its name from the French word for 'trilogy' as a tribute to Montréal, the city in which it was made. The second half is an expression coined by fiercely religious Russian peasants known as Old Believers ? or Doukhobors ? who were ancestors of Molasses songwriter, Scott Chernoff, and whose belief in salvation through suffering shrouds each of Trilogie's songs. With the addition of a new violin player, Molasses' six original members present three epic-length pieces, with found sounds capturing the spirit and setting the music was conceived in: 'Saint Catherine' begins by conjuring the rats of a Montréal morning and ends with a recording of trains in the Mont-Royal subway station that bears the city's name; 'Lisa's Waltz' (featuring experimental composers Alexandre St-Onge and Martin Arnold on electronics and hurdy-gurdy respectively) chronicles Scott's emigration from California to Québec and ends with a vintage recording of his great-aunt singing a Russian hymn; and a stunning 14 minute adaptation of 'Amazing Grace' ? penned by reformed slaver Captain John Newton ? continues the theme of the record as a denouncement of history and sin. An untreated recording of the steeple bells at Montréal's Notre-Dame cathedral acts as a haunting and hypnotic introduction to the trilogy."

Artist:	MOLASSES
Title:	A Slow Messe
Label:	ALIEN8 RECORDINGS (CANADA)
Format:	2CD
Price:	$15.00
Catalog #:	FANCY 005CD

"The album, featuring a slew of honorary members and distinguished guests, is a remarkable and ambitious accomplishment, full of the delicate ballads, explosive improvisations, swirling drones and orchestrated minimalism that have helped earn Molasses its cult following. The band continues to chart vast sonic territory with utter originality; and the band's exquisite energy is everywhere on A Slow Messe: From trademark folk-noir ballads to clanging, chaotic funeral dirges; from lushly subtle love songs to cryptic, off-kilter pop songs. There are Siren choirs and haunting eulogies, little lullabies and spooky blues ruminations."

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