Juana Molina’s recently-released single “Paraguaya” exists is a very particular sort of universe. In the song’s hypnotic music video, disembodied heads coexist among bones stirring black-tar coffee, jagged cake slices are cut, spooky shadow puppets dance at will and utensils levitate. It ends with a languid shot of Molina sitting down with another woman (her mother, Chunchuna Villafañe) for coffee and cake. The wondrous video invites all kinds of interpretations. But no matter what you think of “Paraguya,” culled from the Argentinian musician’s latest album, Halo, this song is undeniably a deliberate confrontation with one’s own history, past and present.
Listening to “Paraguaya,” it’s impossible not to reexamine your own actions. The rhythmic quality of Molina’s music, reverberating with the low lull of a drone, ghostly electronic embellishments and the sparse plucks of a string section, suggests that this less a song than it is an incantation, both an inward and outward gesture that beckons towards healing. It’s also evident in Molina’s brilliant, alliterative wordplay, in which she invokes burning the herb rue and prepares a potion and prayer to recite on a moonlit night. Unsurprisingly, this challenging and centering song has become part of a ritual for me: Not a night goes by that I don’t listen to it before drifting off to sleep.
The Fat Angel Sings 