Maara

(This article’s English version was produced with AI-assisted translation)

A career split in two, shaped by the format of the release: a path marked by dance-oriented extended plays, but also by two albums more devoted to home listening, even if still firmly rooted in the language of sharp beats and carefully measured sound design. It is a well-tested formula whose coordinates Maara-Louisa Dunbar clearly knows by heart. Here she arrives at "Ultra Villain", a second chapter brought to life by the furnace of NAFF, the label run by Ex-Terrestrial and Priori, figures known in the dance underground as prodigies of the new electronic school.
After a debut album immersed in downtempo with nocturnal tones, the axis here has shifted only slightly. The Canadian artist, already backed by a strong run of EPs for the prestigious Kalahari Oyster Cult label, places the promise of revelation in the opening track: "Glimmers Of Hope" inherits the Bowery Electric school and reworks it through contemporary tech ingredients; noir and velvety, sensual and otherworldly, it still defines an uneven path, where subwoofers flirting with claustrophobic trip hop alternate with less hypnotic passages.

Still, not everything here belongs to slow tempo, and there is enough variety for different tastes. Little by little, the rhythm begins to lift, and "NV-0" reveals flashes of trance brightness, shaped into progressive house rhythms and a leftfield pop vocal caught between the hushed and the ethereal. One of Maara’s defining traits is her often sensual singing, almost slurred, in tune with lyrics filled with obsession and intimacy, yet it is in the more radiant moments that she seems to find her truest expressive coordinates. Her voice moves like a breathless sigh and finds its strongest focus in moments of tech-breaks transcendence such as "A Moving Blur", where everything comes back into focus.
A little lost among the fillers, "Ultra Villain" presents itself as a record that wants to seduce, but most of the time settles for a lighter kind of charm.

30/03/2026