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Concert Review
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Chicago Tribune, Concert Review >>
With the economy in a tailspin, downsizing is the norm these days. But that's not the case with Juana Molina, who played to a packed The Morse Theatre on Sunday. The Argentine-born singer/songwriter, who normally performs alone, continued to expand on her musical vision, inviting a bassist and a drummer along for the tour.
The singer's austere appearance—she wore a plain black dress—was in perfect contrast to her music, which blossomed like wildflowers throughout the course of the 80-minute set. Most songs opened with Molina recording snippets of acoustic guitar and keyboard, which she would then loop and sing over. Triggering these loops with a series of foot pedals, the frontwoman could effectively clone herself, making it sound like a choir of like-minded Argentines had joined her onstage.
The effect was mesmerizing on the title track from her 2008 album "Un Dia" (Domino), the singer swaying back and forth as she conjured a hypnotic groove and let loose a series of shamanistic yelps. A 10-minute "Los Hongos De Marosa" piled on skittish drums, Molina's hushed incantations and an electronic outburst that sounded cribbed from a vintage arcade game. Even the independent-minded "Vive Solo," which found the singer cooing, in Spanish, "Live alone ... do everything alone," sounded like the product of a half-dozen musicians.
Though Molina remained the driving force behind the music, her versatile backing crew—bassist Martin Iannaccone and drummer Gregor Hilbe—added welcome depth to a number of songs. Hilbe, in particular, proved a constant revelation, utilizing an array of brushes, mallets and hand claps to craft the percussive backdrop. But even when Molina's bandmates departed momentarily, leaving the singer onstage for a pretty acoustic number, she was never truly alone, an array of looped voices haunting the stage like wailing apparitions.
-- Andy Downing 02/24/09 >> go there
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