A friend recently turned me on to Juana Molina, a contemporary singer from Argentina. She just had a solo show at the Parish (formerly Mercury Lounge, and completely unchanged apart from the name). Now that we are supposed to have more free time, Gwen and I have resolved to go out for more live music, so we caught the show.
It was a solo show, with her laying down vocal, keyboard, and guitar loops live, and then playing and singing over them (I saw Warren Zevon use the same format a long time ago). Her style is very distinctive. She has a breathy voice that I think of as characteristic of Brazil’s female singers, and the sounds she makes with her instruments remind me a little of Robert Fripp. Very nice. Funny repartee with the crowd and the sound guy. She asked “how many of you speak Spanish?” Something like 10-15% of the audience raised their hand. She then explained that when she was growing up, she was listening to music in English, which she did not understand at the time–she liked the music anyhow. And that for the rest of us, listening to her singing in Spanish was a parallel experience.
Thanks. Thanks a lot for having told me about Juana Molina, though I’m argentinian, and I knew she sings and creates, I only know Juana because she made a very good humour show for TV, “Juana y sus Hermanas”. Juana is so shy (she says so) that she is not known here in argentina as she is over there, in the states. Nobody knows here how good and important she is outside. Her mother, Chunchuna Villafañe, is a very well known journalist here, I tell you this just to tell you more about Juana.