History Hinkus

The best music styles to describe Hinkus are house, funk, jazz, latin, down-tempo. All the musicians in Hinkus are very professional, already done many different projects and are well-known as the best instrumentalists in Estonia.

The band Hinkus was put together during spring 2003. The creator of the band is Tanel Ruben, who has written and arranged most of Hinkus’s repertoire.

At first Hinkus was a playing instrumental music but in the beginning of 2004 they asked Maarja to join their band. Before mostly known as a pop singer, Maarja adds some of her own songs and pop-jazz interpretation. Maarja has always been very fond of jazz music since her mother was a jazz singer and Maarja grew up listening to the world’s best jazz musicians.

Hinkus has played already at the most popular nightclubs in Estonia, taken part of different festivals. All the musicians in Hinkus are very professional, already done many different projects and are well-known as the best instrumentalists in Estonia.

Hinkus:

Tanel Ruben – drums

Jürmo Eespere – keyboards

Raul Vaigla – electric bass guitar

Paul Daniel – electric guitar

Raul Sööt – saxophone

Maarja:

”I want to have a long career in music. I want to develop as a songwriter and work with other songwriters and musicians. I love being on stage, but also writing songs for other artists”.

She´s inspired by artists who´ve stayed successful and creative for a long time while at the same time staying in touch with normal life.

Maarja grew up in a home full of music. Her mother was a jazz singer and is now a music teacher. Her father works for the City Council, administrating economic agreements.

”A good mix, one can help me with the music and one can take a look at the record deals”.

Maarja has been a celebrity in Estonia since she was very young. She´s been a TV-show host and has done a lot of appearances singing on TV. At the age of fourteen she decided to quit working with TV and instead focus on a musical career. She then released a couple of records locally.

Two years later, 1996, Maarja won the Estonian try-out for the Eurovision Song Contest, and came in fifth place in Oslo. Universal Music in Sweden contacted her after this show, and the result was an internationally released album. In 1997 Maarja won the Estonian try-outs again, and came in seventh during the final in Dublin.

Maarja´s first album for Universal was released worldwide and sold a quarter of a million copies. It was a big success in Japan, but also made an inpression in the rest of Asia, Australia and South America. European radio gave the single ”First In Line” frequent airplay, especially Germany, UK and Sweden. The albums were also released in the US on the prestigous Geffen label.

The new album is her second for Universal Music, and shows an artist in constant development. The first single is the catchy pop tune ”All The Love You Needed”, which Maarja recorded with the young and fresh songwriter/producer team DeadMono (Lisa Miskovsky, Eskobar etc.).

Maarja is, though she´s only 23 years old, a serious musician with eight years of classical piano studies behind her. She´s now working on developing her piano-playing in a more pop oriented style, and has a very realistic view on music as a profession. Unlike many other young artists, Maarja doesn´t share the view ”it´s fun while it lasts”.

”I want to have a long career in music. I want to develop as a songwriter and work with other songwriters and musicians. I love being on stage, but also writing songs for other artists”.

She´s inspired by artists who´ve stayed successful and creative for a long time while at the same time staying in touch with normal life.

For a year, Maarja´ was living in Stockholm while recording her album. She´s written material with young hot songwriters and producers like Lisa Lindebergh, Malcolm Pardon and Fredrik Rinman (DeadMono), David Eriksen (Murlyn) and Magnus&Max (Mono Music). But also with more experienced people like Sandelin/Ekman (Sprinkler) and US songwriter Kara DioGuardi.

Maarja worked with Chris Hughes, known for his work with Tears For Fears and a couple of albums with Paul McCartney. The very experienced Bernard Löhr has mixed a big part of the album. This has all resulted in a beautifully blended pop album, with Maarjas voice and songwriting talent guiding you the whole way through.

Maarja likes to plan for her future and when meeting her, you notice a matureness not often encountered in light pop music.

”I´m studying law in my spare time, partly because it helps me to understand the contracts I sign, but of course I also have lawyers helping me”.

After getting her degree in law, Maarja is planning to make some time to study at Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Right now Maarja is writing new material for an album in estonian language, and is busy working with her new passion, a club-jazz band Hinkus.

”Hinkus is a great challenge for me and I am honoured to work with such professional jazz musicians. It is fun to see people go wild in clubs listening to our music.”

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