Beer & Vinyl: Radiant Ale meets Magnolia Electric Co.

Despite the title of our website, Girls Who Like Beer isn’t just about the female beer drinker. It’s also about boys who like girls who like beer. One such boy gave us permission to share some beer-related musings pairing Beer with Vinyl from his Angry Luddite website. Thus our first post from The Forgetful Brain, a guy who likes girls who like beer.

The Beer: Radiant Ale

Based in Eugene, OR, and named after the Sumerian goddess of alcohol, Ninkasi Brewing Company produces a whole hell of a lot of beer that will make you want to get down on your knees (for one reason or another). That said, their summer offering – Radiant Ale – is a bit of an odd and ugly duckling. As the name suggests, this is a light and vibrant ale, rife with flavor. And yet, the taste is certainly jarring at first – for a ‘light’ beer, it’s also extremely bitter, like biting into the rind of a grapefruit. In short, it is a beer that, like Magnolia Electric Co., may require a number of return visits to fully appreciate.

The Vinyl: Songs: Ohia / Magnolia Electric Co.

There are some things in this world that I love with a maudlin passion, and the music of Jason Molina occupies a great deal of that space. The first time I heard Songs: Ohia, I was sitting at home in San Francisco’s Inner Sunset district, half-drunk and romancing a bottle of two dollar wine. The song, Tigress, had been sent to me by a close friend, and I ended up putting that thing on repeat all night long. It took me all of a few hours see the song plastered across my myspace page (lol, myspace), blaring its bare, organ-driven soul at visitors. Taken from 2000’s wonderfully depressed Lioness, the song struck every lonely nerve I had in my body, and served as my introduction to Molina’s beautiful, wounded world.

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Songs: Ohia album, Magnolia Electric Co., marked a greater shift in Molina’s sound, bringing with it an upbeat twang that set the course for his future collaborative work. Recorded by the legendary Steve Albini, this album is also the most vibrantly textured Songs: Ohia record. Slide guitars and hummed female vocals upholster most songs, while a variety of instruments and players rise from the background like rogue sunflowers. The album opener, Farewell Transmission, comes surging out of the gate unlike any Molina record before it. After a few seconds of a bright guitar line, the drums kick in and the vocals step forward with a presence that’s commanding almost to the point of triumph, and lasts for the song’s seven minute duration.

Read the full review at The Angry Luddite