What if all day long we focused on repeating a single rhythm: the striking of a clock, an incessant hiccup, or two steps thump thump thump a heartbeat? When you wake upthe debut album from Danish Chilean artist Molina, gives an idea. Written largely while Molina was pregnant—a state of life defined by its sheer duration—the album is an exercise in intense presence, one that holds the awe and exhaustion of embodied existence.
On it, Molina figures the body as a musical instrument. He plays the guitar to the rhythm of the breath. She sings, whether airy or devilish, as if feeling her throat. When she hits her percussion—whether it's an acoustic drum kit or a sampler—she aims for the bones. Molina self-titled her first EP Bodythe Latin word for 'body', and her work stems from the classical idea that musical rhythm arises from our bodies. The central nervous system converts repetition into rhythm. Vibrations are formed in the mood. A pulse becomes a pulse. Molina traverses this transition point between the biological and the musical.
Molina belongs to a group of musicians from Copenhagen, including ML Buch, Erika de Casier, Astrid Sonne and Clarissa Connelly, who studied at Denmark's renowned Conservatory of Rhythmic Music—a school that encourages individualistic experimentation and, most importantly, does not charge for admission. Among the alumni, Molina's thick, almost gelatinous music is most comparable to that of Buch, with whom she has toured. Both artists have an almost academic interest in the intersections between bodies and machines, a bookishness disguised as distractingly good pop tunes. Molina is more surgical in her approach: Like a nurse on the night shift, her music is always looking for a pulse.
Molina begins When you wake upas Buch started last year Sunbathingin a state of blissful isolation: In “The Navel,” there is nothing to notice, only the pleasure of disconnection. The guitars sound like tiny bells. Molina's voice goes toe-to-toe with the sound, a stone floating on every wave. “When I'm all alone/On the eagle's breast,” she sings, as if floating or flying, her music complicating her dreamlike freedom. He plays on an ambiguous scale, giving the song an indeterminate mood that no two listeners will interpret the same way.
