Locality: represents Oakland, California
Color: Antique Gold: This is for Mara's amazing vintage 40's/50's style and hand-made jewelry.
The Story: Mara Hruby’s natural singing voice has been through its own ringer
of bittersweet experiences. Juxtapose an early pre-school teacher who told her
mother that her voice would “change lives,” with a high school choir who denied
her for her vocal subtlety, Mara wondered if she should sing at all. She was a
closet superstar, and it wasn’t until post-high school that she started to
actually take to the pen and write some songs.
Her fears of going forward were shaken off with a little
help from her friends. In the car visiting two friends in LA, she describes them
telling her to sing, and her disdain for the matter. “They were all in the car
with me, and they were just like, ‘Mara, sing!’ and I was like ‘No, no, no I
can’t sing! I don’t want to. I cant!’ I was so embarrassed and my heart was
just racing. My best friend’s brother was like, ‘If you don’t sing now, if you
can’t handle singing in front of us, how are you going to progress and do
anything for anybody else in this world with your music?’”
Absorbing an eclectic mix of her childhood and adult
influences (John Coltrane, Björk, Tribe Called Quest, Al Green and more), Mara took that advice to work on her first show, in which she sang Bob Marley’s
“Is This Love” and Mos Def’s “The Panties” among others. “I realized just how
often I listen to male vocalists and how much of a staple they are in
my life, so I really wanted to pay tribute to the men that have inspired me,”
she says of her choices. She set out to put those selections in an EP called From Her Eyes, which she recorded
herself with the support of friend Jesse Boykins. They later did an editorial
together called Sartorial Sounds with Melo-X, a chance meeting of musicians that led to what
they now call the Romantic Movement.
Her upcoming release called Archaic Rapture not only shows the power of having emotions, but
the power of expressing them, no matter how gloomy they might be. “Archaic
Rapture represents darkness, sadness, longing, loneliness, frustration,
weakness and strength, because you feel weak when you’re in the moment of being
broken and sad and down; but it’s also an extreme amount of power, when you can
openly and outwardly express what these emotions are in a confident way,
because that’s just how you feel. That takes strength too,” she states. Heavily influenced by Julie London, this EP has assisted in battling her vices and may just help others as well.
Coloring Outside The Lines Because: Mara’s voice can take you on vacation. Her weightless vocals create that cool out vibe, an airy, feathery serenade. She’s an intense feeler of emotion, and it shows in word choice. And what other savvy way is there of clearly getting across a message of intimacy and passion than with aesthetic nuance, and by just using the music as a guide? Ever true to her notions, she’s not afraid to be the vessel to the craft.
Think: beach in the morning, rainy day soundtrack, Diana Krall, snapping (post poetry slam).
