"DOGA" By Juana Molina

Juana Molina is an Argentine composer and former television actress whose music transforms South American folk traditions into hypnotic, experimental sound worlds shaped by looping rhythms, digital textures, and dark humor. Across albums like Tres Cosas, Halo, and her recent DOGA, Molina creates surreal, puzzle-like songs that feel organic and uncanny at once—less meant to be remembered than to quietly take root in the listener’s mind.(Pop/R&B / Experimental / Electronic)

When you listen to a Juana Molina song it does not really get stuck in your head. Instead a Juana Molina song takes over your brain. It is like something is growing inside your head. Juana Molina used to be on a show called Juana y Sus Hermanas. She was the star of this comedy series. After that Juana Molina started making music. She has been doing this for thirty years now. Juana Molina takes the folk music of South America. She changes it into something new. She mixes the music with new digital sounds and acoustic sounds. This creates a network of sounds that are all connected to each other like the roots of a plant. A Juana Molina song is, like a mix of different things that all work together. Molinas experience as an actress really brought a touch to the weird songs on her 2004 album Tres Cosas. Over time people started to see that she has a sense of humor that's a little dark, but not depressing. It is like the pictures that Edward Gorey draws. Molina is like a clown she is not just trying to make people laugh she wants to show how strange life can be. On her 2017 album Halo, which's one of the best things she has done she wrote about a relationship that ended. She used ideas about potions and poisoned apples to describe it. Then she put a picture on the cover it was a cartoon of a femur with a face. Molinas music is, like this it is a little weird and funny but serious. She uses Tres Cosas and Halo to show that life is strange and funny. That is what makes her music so interesting. DOGA this is her album and her first one in eight years it is like a series of stories that teach us about right and wrong but they do not really tell us what is right and what is wrong. These stories are more tricky and honest than the ones in her albums, like the ones that came before DOGA.

Between 2019 and 2024 Molina recorded a lot of music thirty hours to be exact with the keyboardist Odín Schwartz. They just played music together. Saw what happened. Molina thought it would be an idea to release all this music as three albums, with one album that would just be music, no singing.. Then she and the producer Emilio Haro decided to pick the best songs and make one album, DOGA that is fifty five minutes long. The song "uno es árbol" is really confusing it is like a mess but then you hear Molinas bass playing and it sounds really good. Molinas music is like that it is over the place but, in a good way. She does not have a beginning to her song. Instead she makes a puzzle with her words: "One is tree/One is not sleeping tree/In untree/One is asleep/The untree/In untree/One is not sleeping tree." So what is this thing called an untree? It is probably like the music of Molina. It is there. It is also not there at the same time.

Molinas music has two long songs that are slow and sad. These songs show that Molina can make a lot of feelings with her music even when it is quiet and gloomy. The music of Molina is like a space, with many different shades. Compare the creepy MIDI lullaby "rina soi" to "miro todo". This will finally answer the question: what if Rebekah Del Rio from Mulholland Drive was the singer for Led Zeppelin? The music of "rina soi" and "miro todo" is very different. Rebekah Del Rio from Mulholland Drive singing with Led Zeppelin is an interesting idea. Listen to "rina soi" and "miro todo" to see what Rebekah Del Rio, from Mulholland Drive and Led Zeppelin would sound like together.

Halo was like a collection of songs that were all connected to the story of the luz mala from Patagonia. Now on DOGA Molina is looking at things that interest her. She is not looking at ghost stories anymore. At things that are strange and weird. Molina picks sounds that're not real but that sound like things you might hear at home like the scary cry of a fisher cat or the loud howl of a coyote or the buzzing noise of a wasp nest, in the roof of your house. Molinas guitar sounds like a guzheng on "desinhumano". She is telling the story of Sun Wukong, a character that appears a lot in the countrys literature.

Molina says "The monkey wants to live with all his heart". She also says "The teacher is kind and teaches the monkey what he knows. The monkey learns fast. He is too proud and does not listen to his teacher. This is not human. The monkey will fail he will fall".What one person can do to hurt another person is really scary. It is even scarier, than things that might be lurking in the dark.

When Molina was pregnant with her daughter in 1993 she left the band Juana y Sus Hermanas. On Molina moved to Los Angeles for a little while to try to make it in music. The cool song "intringulado" is a word that DOGA made up to describe something that is all messy and tangled. Molina sings about three sisters who are fighting over a teapot that was their mothers. The song "intringulado" by Molina adds something to her story. Molina sings about the sisters and the teapot, in "intringulado". Her sister, Inés was one of the Hermanas and their mother, Chunchuna Villafañe had jobs as a model and an actress. Juana Molina knows how to tell a story and it is really exciting when she shares a little secret. Some songs on DOGA are like a conversation, between people, which's why listening to the album can feel like watching a really cool play: Juana Molina playing the role of Juana Molina. The real story does not really matter when you are listening to Juana Molinas music. Left turns are the foundational units of Molina’s artistic practice. She was never going to stay in one place for long.

Morgan Mason