Molina

The Danish-Chilean artist Molina seems to exist in a surreal alternate universe - one ornamented with the faded pastels of yesteryear’s portrait backdrops, infused with Nordic, Japanese, and South American cultural alchemy, and garnished with the bizarre sociality of offbeat cult film.

A production and musical autodidact, Molina weaves her own tapestry out of the many threads of her inspiration. In a similar vein as her idiosyncratic icons like Björk and Kate Bush, Molina manifests her own world, invoking a breadth of influence that only a child of the internet-age can.

Early in her youth, Molina became drawn to the bottomless amount of music that can be found online, from shoegaze and dark wave, to new wave and punk, to electronic through pioneers such as Kraftwerk, Aphex Twins, and the Boards of Canada, and to the Japanese electronic and experimental pop of Miharu Koshi and Mariah. She recalls of her childhood “I remember wanting the Basement Jaxx’s album Rooty for my birthday at the same age as I was dancing to children’s music.”

After her 2017 debut EP Corpus, which garnered praise from BBC Radio 6 Music and The Line of Best Fit, Molina joined Tambourhinoceros to release her sophomore art-pop EP Vanilla Shell in January of 2020. Intertwining the timeless paradoxes of personal liberation and symbiotic love, the EP also reveals an offbeat flavor of uniquely modern self-awareness, touching on themes like fast food addiction.

The 2018 single ‘Hey Kids’ - which can also be heard on Vanilla Shell - took the internet by storm with it’s danceable synth hooks and - as Molina sings in the hit single - “fluffy” atmosphere; as if listening to an underground club through a string-and-tin-can telephone. The accompanying music video, with its dreamy and peculiar nostalgia, struck a chord with tastemakers around the world and propelled the song onto the worldwide alternative charts and into the TikTok stratosphere.

Molina’s universe is one of warm comfort, danceable hooks, mystifying twists, and sensitivity and confidence. Call it art pop, synth pop, left-field pop. Whatever genre it may be, it is something like a telescope through which we can catch a glimpse of her alternate realm.