Maria Minerva

As with early recordings by Ariel Pink, listening to Maria Minerva's releases, starting with her Talinn at Dawn cassette through to last year's Cabaret Cixous, is like hearing someone unpack a warped, yet compelling record collection. On her newest, Minerva (née Juur) takes a few steps closer to the blurry line that separates quirky, home-taped experiments and straight-up club cuts. "Fire," featuring guest vocals by rapper Chase Royal, has the clean lines, bass creep and electronic snap of Mezzanine-era Massive Attack. Washing over the heels of that track is "Coming of Age," a carnival swirl of keyboard lines and layered echo vocals that suggests teenage Kate Bush at the bottom of a deep cistern. Strange and very momentary appearances of pop/dance staples like dubstep drops and Auto-Tune are neat winks that show Minerva isn't some bedroom naïf, but is actually aware of the bigger playing field she is sneaking onto, late at night.