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!).
Molina's 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.
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