Juana Molina is a quietly subversive lady. "In Argentina," she announces, "we listen to foreign music and don't understand a word of what you're saying. So welcome to my world."

Molina is here to prove that Buenos Aires, best known musically for tango and politically charged lyrics, is now home to an intriguing new exponent of Latin chill. She performs solo, with a guitar strapped around her neck and a bank of keyboards at her side, and matches her intimate and gently compelling songs, in Spanish, with backing that veers from the charming and simple to a subtle and quirky wash of sound.

Dressed in black, and with her face at times hidden behind her long brown hair, Molina seems far too unassuming a figure to have followed the career that she has. She fled to Europe with her father, a tango musician, after the military coup in Argentina. On returning home she became a celebrity comic with her own television show before switching to music. She has already established a following in the US, where she has toured with David Byrne, but here, her albums have only just been released over the summer.

At Bush Hall, she comes on like a classic chanteuse - but with a difference. Turning to the keyboards, she sets up a gentle electronic riff against which she adds acoustic guitar as the backing for the first of her cool, melodic ballads. Then come more experimental passages, in which she builds up layers of sound by sampling guitar and keyboards in turn, adding in repeated bursts of percussion.

All this is topped off with her effortless, exquisite and gently melancholy vocals. The presentation is deadpan, but this one-time comic still has a sense of humour. Announcing a song about "a neighbour's barking dog", she suddenly breaks off into an impressive array of howling and yapping noises - without ever disturbing her laid-back style.

· At the Cube, Bristol, tonight. Box office: 0117-907 4190. Then touring.