Earlier today, the Wiwi Jury — our in-house team of music unprofessionals — continued our journey through Latvia ahead of the big final of Supernova 2015 this Sunday. Today we decided to visit Tukums, also known as the town of roses! But as it’s winter and flowers are untypical, we decided to step into a little fancy tavern where we ordered kringels, a traditional almond pastry. Of course we couldn’t forget to review MNTHA and her song “Nefelibata“.
MNTHA – “NEFELIBATA”
You can listen to the live version here!
Anthony: Brace yourself for a guilty admission alert from me, y’all. After seeing MNTHA go all the way to the final, I still don’t get this. It sounds like a song that failed to make the final cut of Björk’s 2011 album “Biophilia”. I can understand this being a different alternative and an entirely new approach from Latvia if this gets chosen, but I do fear this unusual electronic mix might backfire for them.
Score: 4/10
Deban: Chilled electronica, with a laid-back vocal delivery. This reminds me of Moloko. Velvety vocals against an edgy beat. I like the contrast, which creates interesting musical experimentation. Sadly, this is not sustained, nor is it memorable.
Score: 6/10
Denise: What’s up with her hair? It totally distracts me from the song…. Oh wait, that might have been on purpose. The song is pretty bad although I do understand why there are people who like it, but I’m definately not one of them.
Score: 3/10
Judit: Oh God. This song shouldn’t be in the final. I know weird looks can work on the ESC stage but she looks like a toy from Toy Story and hopefully Latvia won’t send this cartoon to Austria. I would like to be nice but in this case it’s really hard.
Score: 2/10
Louis: If Latvia wanted to add some comedy to the show, they have gone about it in the wrong way. I’m afraid that if selected to represent Latvia in Vienna, the laughs they will get won’t be of the good sort, and nobody wants that.
Score: 3/10
Mikhail: This song doesn’t catch at all. It reminds me of SUNDAY in Iceland, but you could watch their performance staring at the screen. Here you start to think what else you can do. Dull and distracting.
Score: 3/10
Patrick: I can totally understand why Latvians are voting for her – she’s something completely new and special, like from another universe. I would describe the music style as ’80s pop mixed with electric and a really dark background. I’m not sure how it will do in Vienna – will it fail or rise up to the top? Who knows!?
Score: 8/10
Robyn: The live performance of this intriguing song makes things more interesting than just the audio, but only a little bit. The song just isn’t engaging enough. It’s background music that plays when something more interesting happens. If this goes to Vienna, it will signal toilet break time.
Score: 3/10
Sopon: Oh great, another left-field entry from Latvia. Does Latvia ever want to do well? MNTHA might be the most eccentric singer I’ve seen in this whole season, and not in a good way. Her song is really strange and kind of off-putting. If this goes to Austria, I’m simply going to write it off.
Score: 4/10
William: This is unique without being freakish, avant-garde without being outlandish. During the semi-final MNTHA at times looked like an aristocrat going through a divorce. In other moments she looked like a homeless woman stumbling home from a club after too much experimenting. In both cases I adore it. From the sound to the staging to her other-worldliness, this is my winner.
Score: 9/10
I know this is “different” and I love different as..for example,Rona’s Suus or Cezar’s It’s My Life or Markus’ Take Me Down but this is so emotionless and weird. Her outfit couldn’t be worse.
Christina Simon pioneered this hairstyle for Austria, back in 1979 in Jerusalem !
yeah, but when Sia pulls off weird-hair-thing, I bet you all admire it…
This is beautiful, the song is great, as her voice.
But people like to hear the same songs everytime (that’s why “Superlove” is one of the favs to win Eesti Laul).
It’s different, a piece of art, and will be in my top 5 of Eurovision if represent Latvia.
I absolutely love this song and would listen to it outside of ESC, but as this jury review proves, it wouldn’t get the respect it deserves in ESC because all in all, ESC is a contest for mainstream music and this isn’t a mainstream song.
She is better than Aminata. Because she is unique. People, who don’t want to have something new on Eurovision, are NOT Eurovision fans.
I do like it. She’s not as good as Aminata, but still very refreshing and enjoyable.
She’s something fresh 5 seconds before a finished product. Good song, but Aminata is definitely the choice for Latvia in 2015!
I like her.
This one is my favorite from Latvia. She is unique and I quite disagree with some of the opinions of the jury, this is NOT comedy, this is ART.
She may not have the best vocals (we know the best singer in the final is Aminata) but the whole package and the uniqueness of MNTHA bring this song to a whole new level.
I believe that whether Latvia chooses this song or “Love Injected” they will qualify to the final. I don’t see the other two songs qualifying to the final if they get chosen though.
This is a very unusual and interesting song. I quite like it too. Unfortunately, I believe MNTHA’s song is more made for smaller audiences in art concert than Eurovision. I Latvia chooses her, they will have a quality entry, but probably again fail to qualify to the grand finals, cause it’s not as catchy or dynamic.
I didn’t understand what was up with the studio version, but the live performance really impressed me. Her voice is really pleasant, and she ignores all the typical classical music rules for vocals, which makes her stand out. I would be proud of Latvia if they bravely chose this song. This is pretty memorable to me – vocals, instrumentals, body movements, everything in intricate symmetry to capture an incredible mood.