There have been two occasions in my life that I’ve regretted not learning how to understand Spanish. The first occasion was after realizing that I had failed French classes for roughly five years in a row, and the second was the first time I had listened to famous Argentinian Juana Molina’s fourth album, Son. The album is an electro-folk masterpiece that blends traditionally mellow bossa nova with ambient noises and delicious little snippets of nature. “I wonder what profound sort of things she’s saying?” I would think to myself while listening to Juana Molina’s sweet nasal voice and the magical foreign words that seemed to just roll off her tongue. For weeks, I reveled in the sounds of her music and enjoyed every moment of it. Yet, I also felt that it was beyond me. There was this gigantic linguistic barrier separating me from truly understanding Son. I desperately yearned to discover what Juana was saying when her voice suddenly became sad, enthusiastic, or hushed.

There was only one solution. I Babel Fished little bits and fragments of songs. What accumulated on the computer screen post-translation was a motley group of words that had lost their sensation through my relentless pursuance of “higher understanding.” The point: Sometimes, lyrics don’t matter. And so Son brought me home to what I believe music is all about, just feeling. It’s difficult to listen to Son and not feel moved to a place entirely otherworldly. Beginning with a track entitled “Rio Seco,” Juana Molina beckons listeners to her music with intriguing guitar strumming, electronic wolves howling in the background, gentle percussion, and a voice that is somehow confident while at the same time fragile. All of these things combined and their variations are what make Son such a great album to listen to. You could get lost in the lush, ambient rainforest that Molina has carefully created through layers and layers of meticulous looping.

The second track on the album, “Yo No,” begins with a simple, playful guitar riff followed by somwhat dissonant horns and multiple vocal tracks. Molina actually beat boxes most of the percussion in “Yo No”. How cool is that? Most of the songs on Son are centered around the guitar, built upon chord extensions, and turned into blooming ideas. “No Seas Antipatica,” begins with guitar and vocals and evolves into a whirl of vocal harmonies and percussive magic, coming to an end with a waltz. Somehow it all makes sense in your ears. Perhaps the most interesting track on Son is the title track. Juana Molina’s voice emerges amongst a plethora of electronic ghosts. Listening to it feels like sitting alone in a cemetary on a sunny day with birds chirping in denial of death. “Son” stands out as the most experimental song of the whole album. Molina’s voice is in a very different place. Throughout the entire rest of the album, her voice is up front. During “Son,” her reverberating voice is far away and she sings like a possessed child carefully mulling over her words. The only melody is created by her voice.

“Malherido” is the most percussive song on Son. Ambient to the extreme, “Malherido” feels like raindrops in your brain, driven by Molina’s persistant chanting. Droning and creaking noises weave in and out of her words, followed by the occasional trumpet and distorted rhodes. Incorporating a variety of sounds, “Malherdo” still maintains a strong form and impressive dynamic in chaos. Finding dynamic through chaos, silence, and space is a remarkable trait of Juana Molina’s. She is tastefully experimental. Somehow, through a dissonant clashing of mismatched loops there is music that manages to remain accessible and evocative. Molina successfully uses technology to bolster nature and music, resulting in a form that transcends language and hits straight through to primal core.

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