As you’d expect from any other of the out-there acts in Manimal Vinyl’s obscure LA cool pool (Rainbow Arabia, Warpaint, The Polyamorous Affair), Hecuba’s brand of witchy electro-art pop is so hot right now. Another camera-friendly boy/girl duo from Southern California, they’re easy to typecast, harder to pin down.On the surface, their thing’s sparse trip-hop adorned with didgeridoos, train whistles, boings and purrs and not much else; Paradise either ekes out a carefully crafted eclectic minimalism, or it’s just criminally kitsch. Maybe it’s just the classical referencing of the band name, but not one of these songs would be much out of place in a spoof of sixties B-movie Jason and the Argonauts, alongside The Bangles’ Walk Like an Egyptian. Appropriate then that the pair first worked together on science-fiction musical projects (whatever those are).That’s not to say they all sound the same. On 'La Musica', dark dub grooves peppered with Albuquerque’s clear-voiced chorus mutates into robotic siren song and spacy ska. 'Extra Connection'’s winsome chorus and emotive synths channel a youthful Madonna, stripped and tied to the stake, while ambient Eastern jazz fusion 'The Magic' (‘I wanna watch cartoons with you, merry melodies and loony tunes’) could score any low-budget Manga film or a hotel lift in Tokyo, and haunted castle of a song 'Humanize' makes the tango sound gothic ”“ picture Morticia Adams feeling the LA afterhours scene.Standing alone, the bare bones of these tracks need a bit of fleshing out - they’d be better served soundtracking some cult indie movie. Beasley’s 58-second dirge 'Everything' could be a cautionary tale for any Carrie-esque prom queen: ‘She’s only seventeen, but she acts like she’s twenty-four, dressed in her powder blue, out on the dance floor. She’s going to get what she needs - she knows what she’s here for, and that’s everything, and then some more’. Further evidence of Paradise’s filmic potential comes in the form of grimy fifties-style singalong pop song Suffering, which finds its bosom buddy in its sexed-up B-movie-style video, an all-out homage to Californian filmmaker Kenneth Anger. Think leather bombers, shiny bonnets, and a clean-shaven Devendra Banhart as a Grease-style car mechanic (it’s actually him). On the basis of Paradise, Hecuba are another band who sound best on YouTube.