Jason Molina's influence on indie rock cannot be overstated. The late Songs: Ohia frontman was gone too soon but left an abundant discography behind, and today Run For Cover is announcing a tribute album called I Will Swim To You: A Tribute To Jason Molina with musicians covering some of his songs. The first offerings are MJ Lenderman's humble rendition of "Just Be Simple" and Sun June's pretty transformation of "Leave The City."
Along with those artists, the record has Trace Mountains, Runnner (who's getting ready to release A Welcome Kind Of Weakness), Sadurn, Advance Base (whose latest LP Horrible Occurrences was our Album Of The Week), Hand Habits (who recently announced Blue Reminder), Teen Suicide, Friendship (whose recent record Caveman Wakes Up was our Album Of The Week), Lutalo, and Another Michael. It goes without saying but I'll say it anyway: Great roster.
10% of the profits from each LP will be donated to the nonprofit MusiCares, which helped Molina when he was struggling with addiction. The project was put together by Run For Cover founder Jeff Casazza and brothers Chris and Ben Swanson, who co-founded Molina’s longtime label Secretly Canadian. “We had the blessing of people who were very close to Jason,” Casazza says, “and I knew we could do something really cool with an important body of work.”
Lenderman leaked the news of this tribute album to us back in 2023 when we asked about the influence of Molina, saying:
A friend showed me in high school, and I got really obsessed. I think you’d be surprised. All the musicians I know that are around my age love Molina. It kind of goes without saying, I feel like. There’s some compilation that Run For Cover, I think, is heading up, and a bunch of other artists around my scene or whatever, age group, are doing stuff, too. I think everybody loves ’90s music, people my age. I don’t know exactly why. Maybe just naturally, you just look back to what was right before what’s going on now.
Now it's finally here. Below hear his and Sun June's beautiful covers and check out the stacked tracklist.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Just Be Simple" (MJ Lenderman)
02 "Blue Factory Flame" (Horse Jumper Of Love)
03 "The Dark Don't Hide It" (Trace Mountains)
04 "Leave The City" (Sun June)
05 "When Your Love Has Gone" (Runnner)
06 "The Old Black Hen" (Sadurn)
07 "Everything Should Try Again" (Advance Base)
08 "Lioness" (Hand Habits)
09 "Whip Poor Will" (Teen Suicide)
10 "Hard To Love A Man" (Friendship)
11 "Shadow Answers The Wall" (Lutalo)
12 "Farewell Transmission" (Another Michael)
I Will Swim To You: A Tribute To Jason Molina is out 9/5 via Run For Cover. Pre-order it here. There will also be a limited edition split 7” with an unreleased demo of “The Last 3 Human Words” by Molina on the A-side and Lenderman’s cover of "Just Be Simple" on the B-side.
