The once-prolific Magnolia Electric Co.'s Jason Molina has kept his fans waiting three years for new music, which arrives in the form of this exceedingly brief EP, originally released as a limited-edition 7". Lasting just over a combined six minutes, the EP's four songs are brief, sketch-like affairs, with barely enough time to establish themselves before they drift off like errant clouds. By comparison, the closing instrumental, "Protection Spell," feels like an epic at two and a half minutes. Considering that the EP's proceeds go to a memorial fund for the band's bassist and pedal steel player, Evan Farrell, who died in a house fire in 2007, the premature endings have a melancholy tinge.

Despite their almost subliminal length, the songs manage to pack in a goodly amount of fresh ideas: the metronome beat of "It's Made Me Cry," which sounds like the crackle of static electricity; the eerie overlapping vocals of "The Compass, the Candle, the Bell." It's all over with too quickly (a full-length is due out in the fall), but it makes for mesmerizing listening on endless loop, letting its mournful sounds wash over you again and again.