Histrionic

Estonian expat Maria Minerva may have found her footing in the cultural battlefield of Brooklyn but her recent music continues to confound easy assimilation, crawling further into the crevices between karaoke fantasy, hall-of-mirrors pop, and meta-dancefloor mind games. Histrionic begins bluntly ("Sometimes beauty and brains are not enough"), ushering in a bewitching 11-song cycle about ivory towers, underground spirit, galactically challenged romances, predators vs prey, seeing the soul, and the ennui of identity amidst the metropolitan maze: "Tables are turned / bridges are burned / you fooled me once / but then you fooled me twice." Shades of woozy trap, London bass music, Eastern European cassette kiosks, 90's diva house, phaser ballads, and ambient rave commingle and align, tracing a nuanced self-portrait of her inner ecosystem of loves and labors lost. A stimulating surf across the brainwaves of one of our favorite artists (and people) at the threshold of an intriguing new pipeline of inspiration.

Maria Juur moved from her own native Estonia to Brooklyn before writing and recording her third LP as Maria Minerva, Histrionic; here, the songs are stronger and more fully formed than on previous efforts.

Perhaps reflecting her move from Estonia to Brooklyn, Maria Minerva also moves toward more overtly pop territory on Histrionic.