i knew that when i got back from overseas i’d be spending a bit of time catching up on things i missed in 2006, but it seems to be all i’m doing at the moment. the knife’s “silent shout” is getting a good run in my house right now. also, i’m finally discovering juana molina. its funny, at one point last year i was at an fnac cd store in bordeaux, and i was trying to pick a few cds to buy that we could listen to in our hire car through spain, but i just seemed to be uninspired, nothing leapt out at me. i ended up leaving having made some decidedly dodgy selections - including phoenix’s latest, which was disappointing, and the new basement jaxx, which was abominable - but i do remember lingering at one point over the juana molina cd ’son’, not really understanding what had drawn me to it. i wish i’d bought it then, and fallen in love with it earlier.

her music is warm and strange, hypnotic layers of her vocals combining with elements of electronica and organic shifting noises and sounds to create something thats pretty hard to ignore. her back story is really interesting too, but it has been told many many times already, by better worders than me. the best place to start is at woebot.tv. anyone who is hooked into the simon reynolds/k-punk/etc axis of music blogging to-and-fro will probably be familiar with the words of mr woebot, well he’s also now regularly releasing streaming video episodes that put a voice (if not a face) to the woebot name. his interview with juana molina can be found in the recently opened woebot.tv archives and is a great introduction to her music. it also features a great live performance.

http://www.woebot.tv

i can’t remember which episode it is, which is a good excuse for you to just head over there and watch them all one-by-one.