Before she was Argentina’s answer to Bjork, Juana Molina was Argentina’s answer to Tina Fey (we were going to describe her as Argentina’s answer to Twink but that seemed a bit wanton). However, her status as one of the country’s top TV yuck-meisters didn’t exactly fill her with glee.

“I hated it to be honest,” Molina sighs. “I always wanted to make music. I wasn’t interested in being famous or having people recognise me in the street. It was a job. Music is a calling.”
Television’s loss is indie-dom’s gain. On her fifth album, Un Dia, Molina presides over a mesmerising suite of A-grade weirdo pop; a sultry, esoteric collection of chirruping beats and dulcet melodies. Quite what she’s warbling about must remain a mystery though – unlike many non-English speaking artists seeking an international fan-base, Molina refuses to abandon her mother tongue.
“It would feel really stilted were I to sing in English. I can’t express my feelings properly in a language other than Spanish. To try writing in English would put a barrier between me and the song.”
Speaking of cultural divides, Molina received a surprise when she touched down in Ireland recently for the Electric Picnic. She’d come expecting a Woodstock-worthy outpouring of peace love and understanding. Instead, she found herself surrounded by lager-chugging hordes. “Definitely it was a shock,” she recalls. “Seeing all those empty beer glasses – you would never see something like that in Argentina.”

Un Dia is out now on Domino