albums of the decade - 21. Juana Molina - Segundo

21. Juana Molina - Segundo (2003)

Extract from the review of 'Segundo' from Stylusmagazine, December 2003:

"The beautiful thing about this record, and what makes me continue to eject it from it’s spot on my shelf between Mirah and Morrissey are the little treasures: the sudden appearance of harmonizing male vocals on “Martin Fierro”; the shaker that pops up halfway through “¿Quién?”; the squiggling synths dancing to Juana’s “la da da’s” on “Mantra del Bicho Feo”; Juana quietly whispering “don’t be so dense” underneath the Spanish vocals on “El Desconfiado”; the reverberating echo on the beautiful piano ballad “Vaca Que Cambia de Querencia”; the sonaric bubbles surfacing on “Sonamos”; and the four minute extended bass thumping instrumental closing the record.

And so here I am repenting for my curses against Juana’s ancient tongue. I am penitent, I am ashamed, I am still not sure why the language has so many forms of “to be” or why it inverts question marks and exclamation points, but I am sorry. I still prefer Arabic, though"