Jason Molina – Eight Gates

Putting together a posthumous album that feels cohesive is a difficult task. The act of mining a performer’s archive, taking unfinished songs and arranging them to feel like a part of an intentional whole, runs the risk of scanning as invasiveness—“Would they have approved of this?” While every fan of Jason Molina’s career—from Songs:Ohia, to Magnolia Electric Co., to his solo work—will have a different answer to that question, Eight Gates justifies its existence by drawing attention to the incomplete nature of the songwriter’s final recordings: a reminder that polish isn’t necessary to achieve beauty and brilliance.