The Stool Pigeon

For many musicians the art of crafting a song is all about telling a story or evoking an emotion, but for Juana Molina it’s all about chasing an image and describing it in sound. The Argentinean singer describes the process of music-making as a visual kiss chase with a random abstract picture that might pop into her mind when she hears a note or a chord, and it’s been a fruitful one that has produced her third album, Un Dia [One Day].

“A chord will trigger some kind of emotion in me,” she explains. “I programme a new sound and, when I start playing it, I’m just following what it tells me to do. All of a sudden it could do a curl to the left, so I will do that. Each sound has its own behaviour and it’s very funny to be the leader and to be led. I don’t think it’s me doing it at all. If I did I wouldn’t do music; I would find it too self-conscious.

“I know there are some people who don’t have images when they listen to music, which I find unbelievable. Music I like brings me images or sensations of well-being, to a point where you can find new truths.”

If Un Dia is a series of images, you imagine a random collection of floating fragments as indecipherable and haphazard as the clouds in the sky. Juana’s seamless blend of sparse electronica, looped Spanish vocals, and ambient folk is haunting, languid and ethereal. Stray noises float in and out, hushed whispers murmur on and on, and layer upon intricate layer is added on to each melody.

“As the band Can said, ‘Every album is a work in progress,’” she continues. “When I read that sentence I thought it was brilliant, because that’s how I feel. Creating an album is like travelling down a road; you try to stop by and deliver what you’ve been collecting every few years.”

The former TV star found an international following for her music after folk hero Will Oldham picked up a CD of hers in Japan and passed it onto Domino Records, who signed her. Since then she has been busy touring with the likes of Vashti Bunyan, Adem and Jose Gonzalez. But has she ever found time to thank Mr Oldham for his fateful intervention?

“One day I was in Chicago and I knew he was playing,” Juana says, “so I went especially to go thank him because not many artists are as generous as him - they’re mostly pretty selfish. He was actually at the entrance of the venue and people were saying ‘hi’ to him. I gave him a cactus, but he was on tour so maybe it wasn’t such a good idea. I don’t dare ask him if it’s still alive. I’m sure it’s dead!”

She expands on her theory that musicians are rather self-obsessed and not exactly keen to foster a sense of musical community: “The ones I know would rather keep things for themselves. It’s different when you’re well known and when you’re a beginner. When you’re a beginner, you want everyone’s attention and when you’re well known you don’t care and you can help others. I’m a beginner, but I hope I’m not selfish.”

The Buenos Aires artist even gave up a successful career as a sitcom star in her home country (programmes like Juana y Sus Hermanas made her a household name in Latin America) to pursue a musical path that was far beyond the mainstream. But rather than a sacrifice, Juana sees it as an escape from a career built on artifice that she has turned her back on.

“Acting was a way to make a living while I pursued music and now that I can do that I wouldn’t hope to go back. When acting, I am not myself so for me to act is pretty easy to do because I can go and be someone else. With music it’s absolutely myself and you become vulnerable, which doesn’t happen when I act.”

Vulnerable though she might feel, if Juana keeps on producing music as gloriously eclectic as Un Dia, you can be sure she’ll never have to act again.

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