Maria Minerva "Bless" EP

 

MARIA MINERVA

Photo Credit: Marko Krunic

Maria Minerva is back with a new EP, Bless, out now on 100% Silk and streaming in full at SPIN, who call it a "woozy disco prayer" with "hypnotic vocals and crisp beatwork that handily blurs the line between brazen experimentalism and pop-oriented dance music." 

Click Here To Stream Bless On SPIN

Hailed by Pitchfork as a "dancer synth wizard," Maria Minerva crafts a seductive and bewitching blend of electronically-based, hook-laden tracks. FACT calls Bless a mix of "perky, precise pop music. The pulsing electro instrumental and hooky sloganeering make 'Black Magick' one of the more upfront things she's done in a while." FADER see first single, "Black Magick" full of "hazy grooves" in which "delicate vocals cavort over Minerva's nostalgic vibrations." 

Click Here To Download "Symbol Of My Pleasure [Form Of My Pain]"

Second single "Symbol Of My Pleasure [Form Of My Pain]" can also be downloaded via SPIN, who call the track a "gothic-tropical rager" that is "one to be reckoned with." 

Click Here To Watch The Video for "Black Magick" on BULLETT

The video for "Black Magick," directed by the legendary Alice Cohen, puts a surreal yet comedic touch on the track by incorporating magic and the occult, something BULLETT loves even though the "video’s occasional goofiness may be a jarring contrast against the song’s haunting simplicity, but it’s a symbiotic relationship that will get you thinking—or at the very least, smiling."

Minerva will be playing a show this April in her new home base of Brooklyn, with more dates to be announced.

Maria Minerva (neé Juur) was born in Estonia, studied in London and now calls Brooklyn home. Now set to release Bless, a new EP due April 2nd, 2013 on 100% Silk, the record builds on her aesthetically-minded, intellectually-driven blend of electronic pop and is a further reminder of the sheer enigma and presence of this artist. With a career in music that only begun in 2011, the artist has been featured in New York Times, The Guardian, NME, Uncut, Vice, Pitchfork, Dazed & Confused, Vogue and countless other publications. Gathering descriptions as diverse as "hypnagogic abstractionist" and "dancer synth wizard" (Pitchfork) to "dance-pop made sallow and creepy" (New York Times) and "dub-savvy, gothic electro-pop the likes of which we've never heard," (FACT Magazine,) Maria Minerva has a sound that is quite impossible to define. Having signed with acclaimed Los-Angeles based independent label Not Not Fun in 2011, she has since released an impressive collection of songs, beginning with her debut "Tallinn At Dawn" on cassette, as well as two LPs, Cabaret Cixious (2011) and 2012's Will Happiness Find Me?, and two EPs, 2011's Noble Savage and the following year's Sacred and Profane Love. She has also found time to tour extensively in the US, Europe, Australia and beyond, playing festivals as diverse as Sonar and the Melbourne Writers Festival to MoMA PS1 with Thom Yorke and The Royal Albert Hall in London. With an aesthetic, sound and philosophy informed by her previous work as an art and music critic at The UK's Wire Magazine, as well as a Masters degree in Aural and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths College, University of London, Maria is currently working on an upcoming full-length album and mastering the art of comedy at the Upright Citizens Brigade.  Links / Maria Minerva Official Website Maria Minerva Facebook Maria Minerva YouTube 100% Silk Not Not Fun Records

Bless Tracklisting / 01. Black Magick 02. Space 4 U 03. Symbol Of My Pleasure [Form Of My Pain] 04. Soul Searchin 05. Black Magick (Lady Blacktronika's Garage Trip Mix)  Spring 2013 Tour Dates / 04.18.13 - Cameo Gallery - Brooklyn, NY *04.20.13 - Public Works - San Francisco, CA # 05.04.13 - New Museum's Ideas City Festival - New York, NY  * with Rioux, O Paradiso # with Butterclock  Previous Press / "Dub-savvy, gothic electro-pop the likes of which we've never heard…The music of Minerva is, yes, very self-aware, very meta, but it's also beautifully rafted, and works sincerely in its own right - it really is catch as hell, and you can actually dance to it." FACT Magazine "Hazy, anachronistic electro beats….roughed-up, feel-good sound from a generation ago, dance-pop made sallow and creepy, its tempos intact but its sheen wiped off." New York Times "Murky disco, full of reverb and delay, disco from a distant decade, decayed, dismayed, frayed" Guardian "Seductive, shimmering and downright great…a pretty glorious take on h-pop, without getting too retroistic about it…anti-sleaze while reminding sultry, flirty yet with a message that teeters on the edge" NME  "Dancer synth wizard...bedroom-disco chanteuse" Pitchfork