I'm sure some of you can remember back in the old days before high-speed Internet came along and changed things, when music-whores would spend hours in records shops and walk out with a pile of records, some from artists they'd not even heard before, perhaps a name someone had passed on or a recommendation from a staff member (record shops even come with free human staff for general music advice purposes).
I remember going into town every Saturday when I was 15/16 and spending £15.99 (for one single album) on the Prince / Queen back catalogue, it was a trip full of excitement, and then the adrenaline rush when you got home and listened to the album for the first time, it was worth those hours working in between school.
This simple pleasure simply doesn't exist anymore, if you wanted to you could download the whole Queen discography in about half an hour for nothing, music has changed to a thing that (some) people regard to as a free commodity and those human interactions have changed to geeky nerds hiding behind a screen writing music blogs and posting on drowned in sound forums...
I realised with the help of Record Store Day a few weeks back that in some cases you can do those simple things you used to (I'm only a child of the 80's), get lost in a music shop and buy something on impulse. What all of that waffling means is, that's what I did with Maria Minerva. I walked into Rough Trade with a list of a few items to pick up, most of things I'd already heard and wanted. I came out two hours later with a few extra things that I got because they looked appealing or the Rough Trade write-up sounded very much to my taste, Maria Minerva's (aka Maria Juur, born in Tallinn, Estonia though is currently based in London) 'Noble Savage' 12"EP (released via %100 Silk) was the latter, the write up sounded just perfect, it wasn't far off either.
Four tracks, 21 minutes of super-sexy bedroom disco pop, "Noble Savage" sets the scene with it's beat-driven tribal dance percussion, with a layered ghostly hypnotic vocal it's pretty seductive all right. If that doesn't win you over then "Disko Bliss" surely will do so, there is a massive hint in the title, but the funky grooves, swirling synths and hand claps will get even the most ardent hipster strutting their thing on the dance-floor. I'm yet to investigate Maria's full length debut cassette, T'allinn at Dawn' though from the sampler "California Scheming" it seems to be equally intoxicating, the beats are there but hidden behind a hazy veil of reverb, I'll be on the lookout for that release then.
There's more to come, her new LP "Cabaret Cixous" is due in June via Not Not Fun.
Listen
Maria Minerva - Noble Savage
Maria Minerva - Disko Bliss
Maria Minerva - California Scheming from Not Not Fun on Vimeo.
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