After an era of popular music that’s paid particularly scant regard to subtlety, more and more music fans are finding themselves turning to offbeat figures like Kelela, SZA or Solange for their refreshingly shrewd R&B offerings. This loose, female-led pop coalition really hit its stride in 2014 with the meteoric rise of FKA Twigs, or ‘The Anti-Beyonce’, as I like to call her, who has recently filled a sizable gap in the market for ‘alternative R&B’ – albeit against her will.

Brisbane-based newcomer Maïa is an artist who may fit this bill suspiciously well, but, I assure you, she is 110% legit. Her vivacious curls, which conjure up some major R&B nostalgia, aren’t the result of a brainstorming session with her agent; she just gets out of bed that way. And when she gets out of bed, it’s not to head to an overpriced recording studio; it’s most likely to find her laptop so she can hone her new-school R&B experiments in Garageband.

Listen to Maïa’s ‘Life Is A Lie’ below.

Her latest track, ’Life is a Lie’, which you can hear first, is a tale of self-discovery that she expertly filters through jazzy melodies, a nostalgic soul sample and glitchy hip-hop percussion. Maïa flaunts the full extent of her vocal prowess on this one, as she switches between deliberate crooning and a sprightly flow that would make Princess Nokia proud.

Follow Maïa on Soundcloud, and like her Facebook page for more from the future-star. 

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