Juana Molina

Hailing from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Juana Molina is an extraordinary singer / songwriter / producer with a remarkable tale to tell. Formerly a celebrated Argentinian comic with her own successful TV show, Segundo is her second album, and the first to be heard outside her home country. Turning her back on her previous career, Juana’s music flows from her acoustic guitar, off-kilter electronic sounds and rhythms and a vast, strangely comforting plethora of noises from flora and fauna, while her voice is soothing and mesmeric. Segundo is a wonderful album bubbling with joy and underpinned by gentle grace.

Juana explains: "My father taught me to play guitar when I was five and I've been in a musical ambience all my life. During the summers we lived in the same house with Vinicius de Moraes and Chico Buarque; my father played with them and they were always improvising songs to cheer up the kids. When a military coup d'etat seized the country our family fled to Paris. We lived there for six years and came back to Argentina when democracy was restored.”

Back in Buenos Aires, Juana became a singer in various bands, but feeling like she needed to brush up her guitar playing, she had to come up with some money for lessons. A curious twist of fate saw Juana Molina begin working as a comedian on television. Suddenly, she was a star with her own show – Juana and Her Sisters – which became a hit in the rest of the (not-inconsiderable) Spanish-speaking world. She earned a reputation as the most acclaimed television comedian in Argentina. Her stellar comedic career meant her musical aspirations, which lay nearest to her heart, lay dormant for seven years.

Realising how far from her original goal she now was, Juana started working on her first album Rara (released by MCA Argentina, 1996). She moved to Los Angeles in 1998 an started all over again, playing gigs in local clubs. At this time she started work on Segundo (released in Argentina in December 2000), which is only now finding a release in the UK.