Everyone's a cousin with Brian Molnar.

Brian Molnar’s music reminds me that every human being is in fact, connected. And that there is a reason why we like the things we like, music, art, all those lovely subjective things. Brian Molnar makes music that I’d make if I was a boy (because its not the same as the music I think about making as a girl). Brian Molnar I find him to be a calmer, more sweet Bob Dylan. If only because of the resemblance Dylan and Molnar have in their voices (Molnar says this comparison happens to ‘anyone who writes good songs and plays acoustic guitar’ and lists Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson as other close comparisons, which I hadn’t initially thought of but now that he mentions it, I can see it. Hear it. Whatever). You’ll find I have a great bias towards music that is simple-sounding. This is because it is the sort of music I like. This is because simple music isn’t easy. It’s easy to dress up a song. It’s easy to use what equipment you can get your hands on to help your song get more adjectives. It’s easy to write a simple song, sure, but it isn’t easy to play a simple song well. This is why I like to show off artists who have achieved perfection in simplicity. Brian Molnar does just this. His music sounds so easy, but it’s amazing. Another bias I have is with surnames and some countries (ie. Finland, Canada, Australia, Hungary, France, Russia…). Brian Molnar takes up one of these biases too. This makes me think I could be related to him distantly, even though I know I’m not. (The bias we have here is with surname. His surname is mine, but due to the circumstances in which my father’s family migrated to Australia, there’s no way we’re related. But y’know, it’s a nice thought.) Which brings me back to Brian Molnar’s music reminding me that every human being is in fact, connected.

In an age of clever hooks and slick production, Molnar's music is a rarity in that it breathes with that quality that can only be described as truth in experience--that breath that can only come from the artist's soul. – BrianMolnar.com
‘Black and Blue’
‘I Need You’
‘Throw Me a Line’
mp3s and photograph (from the unterdon county democrat 10/06/04) courtesy of brianmolnar.com