Juana Molina | ||
| Allmusic Biography : Juana Molina is a singer/songwriter from Argentina whose atmospheric blend of folk, electronica, and experimental pop have brought her international acclaim. Best known in South America as a comedic television actress, Molina debuted in 1996 with Rara, which initially seemed like just another celebrity vanity project. However, the album was simple, direct, and intimate: three things that usually fall outside the ego scope of most celeb music projects. Apparently, Molina was happy pursuing other interests and it wasnt until 2003 that she returned with a follow-up album, this time recording for the U.K.-based Domino label. Segundo had all of the intimacy of Molinas earlier work, but the prominence of electronics on the album clearly signaled a departure. A third album of electronica-enhanced songs, appropriately titled Tres Cosas, appeared soon after, in 2004. She spent much time touring the world and showing off her deft ability at backing her vocals with guitar and delay pedals, then recorded her third album for Domino. The much more organic and acoustic guitar-based Son was released in May 2006. Un Dia followed in October 2008, charting the same course of organic and acoustic material. After a five-year break, Molina released Wed 21 in October of 2013 on Crammed Discs; it was prefaced by the single "Eras." Her seventh album, 2017s Halo, was recorded both at home and in Texas at Sonic Ranch Studios. Hypnotic and inventive, Halo continued to straddle Molinas strange divide of off-kilter electronic pop and organic songwriting. | ||
 | Album: 1 of 9 Title: Rara Released: 1996-05 Tracks: 10 Duration: 40:02 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Ella en su cuaderno (03:42) 2 En los días de humedad (03:20) 3 Vergüenza es robar y que lo vean (04:26) 4 Se hacen amigos (03:46) 5 Hoy supe (03:06) 6 Rara (03:07) 7 Solo en sueños (05:59) 8 Pintaba (04:49) 9 Buscá bien y no molestés (04:19) 10 Antes (03:24) |
 | Album: 2 of 9 Title: A∩B Released: 2003 Tracks: 11 Duration: 43:22 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Idioma (04:12) 2 Amigo (04:07) 3 La más grande (03:07) 4 La marca (05:11) 5 Kortz (02:31) 6 Rusos (03:17) 1 Obertura y radar (07:42) 2 Río primero (03:04) 3 Árbol de pomelos (03:39) 4 Dame un sol (03:55) 5 Pasando el mar (02:37) |
 | Album: 3 of 9 Title: Segundo Released: 2003-07-01 Tracks: 15 Duration: 1:10:11 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic Wikipedia AlbumCover | 1 Martín Fierro (04:56) 2 ¿Quién? (02:40) 3 El perro (06:41) 4 ¡Qué llueva! (03:51) 5 La visita (02:17) 6 Quiero (02:41) 7 Mantra del bicho feo (07:57) 8 El desconfiado (03:08) 9 El zorzal (03:07) 10 El pastor mentiroso (04:51) 11 Misterio uruguayo (04:20) 12 Vaca que cambia de querencia (03:49) 13 Medlong (03:46) 14 Sonamos (09:04) 15 Wronger? (06:56) |
| Segundo : Allmusic album Review : America doesnt have a lock on all the off-kilter singer/songwriters. Take a listen to the very individual Argentine Juana Molina. On her second album, she explores electronic and acoustic textures, treading through them like rooms in an empty house while inspecting details and corners. Shes equally comfortable with detuned synths (as on "Medlong") or acoustic guitar ("El Zorzal"), but whatever she uses, her music keeps taking the path less traveled. Her unusual, minimal touches transport lovely melodies into different dimensions. Molina is like a Latin Lisa Germano: both make small, intimate albums and think outside the box. But originality should be treasured, especially when its wrapped in glistening little melodies. Molina can have an almost childlike simplicity at times in the way her voice glides between the blips and bloops, although her sensuality comes to the surface in other moments. She utilizes minimal arrangements and the production might sound more like work from home than the big recording studio, but this naïveté suits the songs. Theres an irresistible charm about both this disc and Molinas approach. Even if you dont speak Spanish, youll still be smiling. | ||
 | Album: 4 of 9 Title: Tres cosas Released: 2004-05-04 Tracks: 13 Duration: 57:44 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 No es tan cierto (03:13) 2 El cristal (05:03) 3 Sálvese quién pueda (05:58) 4 Uh! (03:33) 5 Tres cosas (03:58) 6 Yo sé que (05:55) 7 Isabel (04:22) 8 Lamba corta (02:22) 9 Sólo su voz (04:10) 10 Cúrame (06:34) 11 Filter taps (04:12) 12 El progreso (05:25) 13 Insensible (02:53) |
| Tres cosas : Allmusic album Review : Welcome to Juana Molinas world. Its a place of friendly funhouse mirrors, where reality stretches or contracts, where sounds whisper rather than assault, and melodies linger on the air. Sounding not a million miles from Lisa Germano fronting a muted Stereolab, its also like a walk through a spring afternoon, where the sun is pleasant and not too strong -- just enough to refresh the spirit. The former actress has developed into a formidable artist, writing, performing, and producing this herself, and presenting her vision unedited. Her music might be low-key, and if you dont speak Spanish, her words mean nothing. But that doesnt matter. In the combed tangle of beats, acoustic guitar, layered voices, and synthesizers, she teases out strands of beauty that emerge and fall back like waves, as on the closing of "Sálvese Quién Pueda." Shes unafraid of trying things, of putting unlikely elements together -- as on the loops that open the title cut -- to create something much more than the sum of its parts. Far more than someone like Beth Orton -- who seems positively conventional in comparison -- shes creating a new paradigm for singer/songwriters, with electronics an integral part of her sound, rather than an afterthought. She might not have the best voice in the world, but she understands how to use its breathy qualities, whether alone or multi-tracked. Above all, shes made her music into art, and moved confidently ahead from her debut (which looks tentative in retrospect), becoming one of the most individual voices around. | ||
 | Album: 5 of 9 Title: Son Released: 2006-05-23 Tracks: 12 Duration: 55:46 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Río seco (03:32) 2 Yo no (04:57) 3 La verdad (06:40) 4 Un beso llega (07:18) 5 No seas antipática (04:21) 6 Micael (03:03) 7 Son (03:24) 8 Las culpas (02:42) 9 Malherido (04:22) 10 Desordenado (02:20) 11 Elena (04:31) 12 Hay que ver si voy (08:31) |
| Son : Allmusic album Review : Juana Molina is an unlikely indie music star, having risen to prominence in South America as an actress on TV sitcoms, but between 2000 and 2006 she released three albums of increasingly ambitious, distinctive, and beautifully constructed electronic folk-pop. The third of these releases is arguably the best: SON is as reverence-inducing as a country church (albeit a postmodern country church from the future!). Molinas music is hushed and introspective, taking its dynamic cues from the likes of Nick Drake, yet it is boldly experimental. Electronic textures pulse around acoustic guitars, vocal lines are layered in lush and startling ways, and pitches bend gently like tired brain waves. Molina sings in Spanish, but a language barrier makes little difference in music as sensual, evocative, and thoroughly creative as this. | ||
 | Album: 6 of 9 Title: Un día Released: 2008-10-07 Tracks: 8 Duration: 50:29 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Un día (05:35) 2 Vive solo (05:58) 3 Lo dejamos (07:31) 4 Los hongos de Marosa (07:28) 5 ¿Quién? (suite) (07:23) 6 El vestido (04:32) 7 No llama (05:20) 8 Dar (qué difícil) (06:42) |
| Un día : Allmusic album Review : Juana Molinas sound is so precious and rare that tampering with the formula is akin to tearing down a singular example of great architecture, or witnessing the extinction of a rare and beautiful animal. Fortunately, Un Dia is immediately recognizable as a Juana Molina album. Yes, there are slight differences between this and her previous work, but fortunately, shes still retained most of what made her special in the past. In place are the gentle but propulsive vocal-based rhythms, the airy feel to the proceedings, and the occasional chirping polyharmonies. Also present (and appreciated) is the fine balance between organic instruments (wood, metal) and post-production processing (delays, distortion) that makes her records sound as experimental as Björks but much more inviting. Differences appear, however, in the hypnotic rhythm that powers several songs with a driving energy. If her breakout albums, 2000s Segundo and 2002s Tres Cosas, were so diaphanous that they threatened to dematerialize altogether, Un Dia makes rhythm a central proposition, sometimes so machine-like that she approaches techno (albeit, techno from the standpoint of an Argentinean obsessed with native instruments). | ||
 | Album: 7 of 9 Title: Un día (Reboot remix) Released: 2010-08-02 Tracks: 1 Duration: 10:18 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% AlbumCover | 1 Un día (Reboot remix) (10:18) |
 | Album: 8 of 9 Title: Wed 21 Released: 2013-10-28 Tracks: 11 Duration: 49:03 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Eras (04:24) 2 Wed 21 (03:17) 3 Ferocísimo (03:23) 4 Lo decidí yo (04:05) 5 Sin guía, no (04:51) 6 Ay, no se ofendan (05:30) 7 Bicho auto (04:34) 8 El oso de la guarda (06:38) 9 Las edades (04:17) 10 La rata (04:18) 11 Final feliz (03:46) |
| Wed 21 : Allmusic album Review : In the five years since Argentine singer/songwriter Juana Molina released Un Dia, her sound has undergone a subtle but distinct shift. On Wed 21 (named for the date she finished the title track, Wednesday, November 21), the intricate layering of electronics, from rhythms to delays and adornments, remains intact, as does her organic reliance on lyric melody. What is immediately apparent is the wider instrumental palette at work. In addition to acoustic guitars and drum machines, Molina employs myriad electric guitars, basses, a drum kit, organ samples, a horn, and more detailed electronics. Her voice still dominates, though. This is true in primary and chorus vocals. Check the lilting, breezy, multivalent harmonies in "Lo Decidi Yo," where they engage a faux Brazilian melody as a mutant forro meets the stretched bossa of tropicalia. Despite rumbling tom-toms, a wandering analog synth, and interspersed electric guitars engaged in a separate dialogue, her voice dictates the songs direction and flow. On the opening track/single, a rhythmic vamp similar to "Pump Up the Volume" is framed by controlled feedback and an insistent polyrhythmic pulse. As the electric guitars kick in, her vocal establishes a breezy, labyrinthine melody that dances across rhythms that embrace samba and cumbia. "El Oso de la Guarda" is quirky in the extreme, with bubbling polyrhythmic twists and turns, wobbly guitars, and voices; only the bassline holds its structure together -- though Molinas guitar, charango, and harpsichord bridge is so intoxicatingly ethereal, one almost wishes it took over entirely. Set-closer "Final Feliz" commences as merely a series of guitar chords that begin to build in tempo and intensity, until they dictate a dominant series of layered rhythms on the six-string, bass drum, hand percussion, and even a saxophone. All thats left is for her to sing above it all in waves and layers, stretching her harmonics; she pays attention to the galloping pace, yet refuses its density; she cruises seemingly effortlessly above it all. As usual, humor is part and parcel of Molinas musical architecture on Wed 21. You can hear it in the whimsy of her delivery and in her numerous, almost incalculable juxtapositions of rhythms and melodies. Wed 21 progresses from her previous recordings, but its an extension of them, not a departure. | ||
 | Album: 9 of 9 Title: Halo Released: 2017-02-28 Tracks: 12 Duration: 56:28 Scroll: Up Down Top Bottom 25% 50% 75% Spotify TrackSamples Allmusic AlbumCover | 1 Paraguaya (03:43) 2 Sin dones (05:41) 3 Lentísimo halo (05:23) 4 In the Lassa (04:39) 5 Cosoco (04:57) 6 Cálculos y oráculos (04:46) 7 Los pies helados (05:22) 8 A00 B01 (04:29) 9 Cara de espejo (05:09) 10 Andó (03:50) 11 Estalacticas (04:52) 12 Al oeste (03:37) |
| Halo : Allmusic album Review : From the album cover of Juana Molinas seventh album, Halo, a bone bearing two human eyes stares shrewdly out at the viewer. Its an image as comical as it is unnerving, though not entirely unexpected from the inventive Argentinian singer/songwriter, who for two decades has danced nimbly around the boundaries of experimental pop, art, and design. Since abandoning her successful career as a comedic television actress in the mid-90s, Molina has served up a constantly evolving pastiche of maverick sound that usually includes erratic beats, glowing electronics, fractured guitar loops, and all manner of treated vocals. What has kept her outsider music consistently appealing is the whimsy and melodic warmth that imbue her catalog with an underlying sense of humanity. Halo, Molinas first release since 2013s Wed 21, feels like a logical snapshot of her ongoing journey, presenting 12 new tracks that are as eccentric as they are inviting. From the woozy strings poured gently atop the dark digital grooves of "Paraguaya" to the fractured Latin guitar riff that carries lead single "Cosoco," the instrumentation is subtly layered and the production pleasantly disorienting in what has become her signature style. On the wonderful "Sin Dones," a neat bass groove develops slowly under Molinas effected vocals for three minutes before finally breaking into a seductive drum pattern that utterly transforms the song. Many of the tracks are built this way, taking their time to unfold, sometimes reaching their destination and sometimes just out for a stroll. On "Cálculos y Oráculos," one of Halos most understated tracks, hazy muted synths warble around a sweet two-chord refrain that seems to be constructed out of the windy tone made from blowing on a bottle top. Its an enchanting mix that falls at the center of the albums sequence like an interlude. Training an audience to expect the unexpected is a tough trick, but after two decades, Molinas reputation as a bold sonic explorer is well established. | ||