Marina Bloom is not your typical songwriter. A lawyer and business analyst who’s also devoted to human rights activism; she organises flash mobs with dance enthusiasts; expounds the benefits of raw food; and performs traditional songs with her Russian choir Singing Nations.
This eclectic range of pursuits all contribute to a woman with an open, sincere outlook on life. Her penchant for singing straight to the heart attracts an audience who appreciate wholeness: in substance and in sound.
Marina grew up in the town of Sochi, Russia and always loved performing,
“I remember being on the bus with my Mum at age 4 singing so loudly that everyone was smiling at me and my Mum had to apologise for the noise.”
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There's a very retro feel about these songs — their roots often in the Seventies and Eighties – but Bloom possesses a voice which could cut through at mainstream radio with the five-minute 'Houston We Have a Problem' which again works that restrained power ballad idiom and lyrically references Bowie/Life on Mars."
- Graham Reid - Elsewhere Music Review
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Definitely one of my "must own" albums of the year!
- Phil O'Brien - Radio NZ
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Soon after she was chosen as a soloist for the town’s children’s choir. The thrill of performing and innate lack of fear prompted her to study vocal training at the Sochi College of Arts and later toured in a musical show across the country.
After migrating to New Zealand, Marina promptly partnered with a local lyricist, Michael Davis. Together they penned six-dozen songs and quickly set about recording them.
Marina’s steadfast approach to creating soulful tunes has led to national radio interviews, international awards, a viral music video in 2016 with her silky pop ballad, ‘Heroes’– and to top it all off, her 2018 track ‘This Feeling’ (ft. mPHATic) hit the #1 position on the New Zealand iTunes Dance chart beating Bruno Mars to the punch.
This much is clear–Marina’s motto to live life in full bloom is not just a platitude. She lives it everyday, in her life and in her songs. But she’s modest about where her songs come from:
“Music for me is like a sea that I swim in. It is not coming from me, it is like - I am inside of it. It is bigger than me, I just catch little bits of energy that flow to me and I listen to what they want and sometimes I have to wait to get it.”
Fortunately, we don’t have to wait too long.
Marina is an ever-moving musical force, much like the energiser bunny but with a microphone instead of crash cymbals.
It’s this forward momentum that has propelled her to work on a second studio album ‘Back Where We Started’, a collection of her latest works including something for everyone: upbeat tunes-of-the-summer, ballads, anti-ballads, dance-electro tracks, and Russian language ethnic tunes. Marina weaves a multi-cultural, multi-genre tapestry of an album due for release in early 2020.
UPDATE: Marina was recently selected as a semi-finalist in the Unsigned Only songwriting competition 2019, for her song 'Flying'!