There’s something deliciously honest about Mara Hruby. Yesterday, the 22-year-old R&B/soul songstress from Oakland, CA ensnared the hearts of music nerds across the globe with her evocatively sensual, stripped-down cover of Al Green’s ‘Simply Beautiful,’ which was spotlighted on Billboard’s The Juice. Head over to soundcloud.com/marahruby for the studio version, but even her live performance begs little embellishment.
Hruby’s bare-bones approach glances back at the late 90s and early 2000s neo-soul wave spearheaded by D’Angelo, Jill Scott, and others. Speaking to her debut EP, “From Her Eyes,” released almost exactly two years ago, Mara says: “I wanted to cover songs that were originally done by men to show the femininity in my perspective.” Her cover of D’Angelo’s ‘Send It On,’ which Hruby describes as the most daunting cover she’s recorded, is nothing short of sublime; delicately distorted layers hover lightly above her sultry melodic expansions on the “Voodoo” classic.
There’s little climactic braggadocio in Hruby’s work; her proclivity for pared-down acoustic production and light harmonic layering leaves plenty of room for an unobtrusive focus melody. In the video for ‘Character,’ she outfits herself in a pristine 50’s throwback getup, hops in a vintage VW bug, and finds a cozy park nook to croon in.
Hrub’s focus at this early point in her career has overwhelmingly been covers, which makes for exciting thinking on how she’ll turn her ears towards an original album. In the meantime, she seems content to breathe her own life into the music she grew up on. In a 2011 interview covering “From Her Eyes,” Hruby recalls the presence of music in her family’s life: “Whenever I had dinner growing up in my home, we always had to have a record playing in the background.” I’m going to wait for just the right plate to toss Hruby’s tunes on; hopefully by then, she’ll have released some vinyl to spin on my pops’ record player. I’ll leave you with one more; Hruby’s softened take on Mista Marley’s ‘Is This Love.’
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