SOUNDCHEQUE MONDAYS // Maria Minerva
Life / MusicWhen I first moved to Vancouver, I made two promises to myself: I'd finally learn to drive a car and to speak Estonian. Here we are 15 months later and nothing has happened on either front - that is, until now! Hanging out with someone who drives an old, bare bones, manual Japanese pickup who has generously offered to teach me everything he knows plus free use of the truck once I've got a handle on things (keeper??), and recently started teaching myself Eesti keelt. There's a part of me that maybe thinks it's bad idea to rely on basic (read: free) online language courses, but ya gotta start somewhere...
ANYWAY, this brings me to this week's Soundcheque Mondays post: Maria Minerva. Who? I didn't know either until I read Mark Richardson's review in our latest issue of Color 9.6, but she is Estonian and apparently a big thing in Europe. Sounds like Grimes, but I really just like that she's been described elsewhere as 'gloom disco'... Naudi!
Maria Minerva
sacred & profane love
(100% silk)
It’s only been a year since her debut appearance on a limited cassette that was quietly released by Not Not Fun, but Maria Minerva has since been making huge leaps and discoveries within in her aesthetic. Since the recent release of her full-length, Cabaret Cixous, the London-via-Estonia producer, still in her early 20s, has recently been slotted alongside the likes of Nite Jewel and Glass Candy, though Minerva eschews the more direct pop stance of her contemporaries in favour of a more abstracted bliss. Her debut, Tallinn At Dawn, was a fairly muted and hazy affair, while Cabaret Cixous expanded on that and nudged it towards the dance floor. This artistic growth hasn’t slowed, as Sacred & Profane Love is so much bolder and confident than anything released previously. The alien disco of tracks like “Another Time & Place” or “Kyrie Eleison” burst out of the headphones and onto some distant interplanetary discotheque. With thumping, low-end bass, her trademark drifting vocals and an array of imaginative, quirky synth squiggles, Sacred & Profane Love tickles the mind as easily as the lower lumbar.
—Mark Richardson, Color 9.6
See you next week!
What is Soundcheque Mondays anyway? Every week, I'll be posting a music review direct from the pages of Color that deserves another go-around, plus a video from the band so you get to hear the actual music that goes along with it. Win/Win!
Previous entries:
Monday Feb 6, 2012 Soft Moon
Monday Feb 13, 2012 Cloud Nothings
Monday Feb 20, 2012 Nirvana
