Halo was a unfastened idea album centered across the Patagonian people legend of the “luz mala.” On DOGA, Molina’s fascinations have shifted from the paranormal to the paranatural. She cherry-picks artificial textures that mimic essentially the most terrifying sounds you possibly can hear in your individual yard—a fisher cat’s cry, a coyote’s howl, the buzzing of a wasp’s nest beneath the eaves. On “desinhumano,” Molina’s guitar takes on the twang of a Chinese language guzheng as she retells the story of Solar Wukong, a recurring character within the nation’s literature. “The monkey strides along with his keen coronary heart to be immortal,” Molina warns. “The grasp, beneficiant, imparts his knowledge/Swiftly, the monkey learns, but proudly he fails him/Uninhuman!/He’ll fall, he’ll fall.” The cruelty one human can inflict on one other is scarier than something on the market at nighttime.
Whereas pregnant together with her daughter in 1993, Molina give up Juana y Sus Hermanas; later in hte decade, she moved to L.A. for a time to pursue music. The mesmerizing “intringulado”—“an invented phrase to explain a multitude all tousled,” per DOGA’s lyrics sheet—provides a wrinkle to that narrative. Molina sings of a trio of sisters squabbling over a teapot that belonged to their mom. (Her sister, Inés, was one of many titular Hermanas, and their mom, Chunchuna Villafañe, had careers as a mannequin and actress.) She is aware of the right way to spin a yarn, that the faintest whiff of confession is intoxicating. A number of songs on DOGA are written in play dialogue, which fits to clarify why listening to the album can really feel extra like sitting right down to an important piece of experimental theater: Juana Molina starring as “Juana Molina.” The true story is irrelevant. Left turns are the foundational items of Molina’s creative observe. She was by no means going to remain in a single place for lengthy.
