CD: Juana Molina - WED 21

Anyone familiar with the hermetic sound-world of Argentina’s Juana Molina is not going to be surprised by WED 21, her first album in five years. Despite an added rhythmic pulse, a new use of squelchy and clanking electronics and a more spare approach, she hasn’t arrived in a new territory. More one where some fresh outsiders have been welcomed.

That’s not to say WED 21 isn’t good – it is. It’s more that her vision remains so singular she has stepped beyond the boundary of self to become the presiding authority for a genre for which she has set the template. Her sound is rooted in rotating loops of guitar – acoustic and electric – which swirl incessantly to provide a bed for her distant, mesmeric and repetitive vocals. Melodies are intimate and understated. Texture comes from wordless singing, electronic wash and pulsing, insistent percussion. The whole has a sad, minor-key atmosphere – as though swarms of instrument-playing worker insects were lamenting the loss of their environment. Over the album, individual pieces unite to set a contemplative atmosphere which lingers.

By the sixth piece, “Ay, No Se Ofendan”, the mood has become so intense that WED 21 appears to be spiralling out of control. Molina then reaches a meditative plateau which reconciles its forcefulness with the contrast between her voice's swings from keening to tranquillity. This is a serial music which, at its best, electrifies.

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Overleaf: Listen to “Eras” from Juana Molina’s WED 21

Listen to “Eras”, the opening track from Juana Molina’s WED 21