Mi sei apparso come un fantasma

Mi sei apparso come un fantasma (a rough translation of She Came To Me As A Ghost) is arguably Jason's best live performance.

Recorded just after the release of, this live album is exactly what Jason's career was like in the early 2000s: slow-cutting lonely musings with angry crescendo moments, this time backed by an actual band, fleshing out the recording significantly.

The package contains a few songs that are untitled and are so far unreleased (which I'll reference by their given name), and a few tracks from The Lioness and his s/t debut.

Because of the full band backing previously mentioned, the songs on here gain a new life, and sound so intimate yet so full of energy. Cabwaylingo went from being a sparse melody, to becoming this big, confident rocker of a track, and the others are full of instrumental passages that were really lacking on the studio versions.

My overall feelings towards this are very positive. Jason was a prolific musician on the stage, and while most of his live catalog is stunning, this album has it all: intimacy, loneliness, anger, energy and most importantly, passion. A essential in the discography of Jason Molina.

The only thing I'm slightly mad about is that the album was released on some backwater label, and is pretty impossible to rerelease.