Strangerfamiliar

Strangerfamiliar’s La Pena—an album gorgeously overflowing with syncopated rhythms, swaying and boomy synths and deep lyrical hauntings—is brought to you by trauma.

Born from an eternal wound in a pain-filled lineage that seeks to undo past harms with understanding and redeeming love, each song represents a step in the raw emotional excavation of a healing journey by Ilichna Morasky, a Chilean born, Canadian raised multidisciplinary artist currently based in Copenhagen.

Recorded at home and lovingly self-produced over several years and across three different continents, this particular journey began in Santiago, Chile, as Morasky went in search of connection, some time to regroup and discover a new path forward.

“At the advice of a like-minded spiritual-growth-seeking cousin, I saw a healer in beautiful El Cajón del Maipo. She pulled invisible strings out of me as tears streamed down my face non-stop for an hour,” she describes.

“Circling me, she kept repeating the word ‘pena… pena…’ and telling me that the sorrow in me was thick like tar although not all mine. Feeling simultaneously damned and seen, since then I’ve been seeking similar spirit-inclined experiences that aim to help me understand where I’ve been and where I’m going.”

From glistening opener “An Organ,” which speaks of the heartbreak initiating the need for healing to pulsing closer “Chain, in which Morasky achingly clings to hope for lasting, unconditional love, La Pena documents an expansive journey that helps us all work through the massive traumas we’ve collectively endured.

The super low booming undercurrents in “Estudiante,” on embracing the beginner’s mindset, are juxtaposed against “Shadow’s” glowing pluses, which seduce us into facing the darkest moments of grief. The particularly syncopated “Push” asks us to recognize repeating patterns and to find the strength to break them. In piercing “Flower,” Morasky realizes the impact and collective suffering that external expectations set on women, through sounds that conjure a primal urgency. The underwater glow of “Ocean” embraces rare moments of enlightenment and peace as “Truth” unflinchingly commits to a higher self.

Once dubbed ‘crypop,’ Strangerfamiliar’s sound reaches into both the searing intimacy and experimental artistry of Fever Ray and Kate Bush. A self-taught producer and multi-instrumentalist, Morasky’s project began in Montréal’s underground music scene in 2015 and continues after a four-year post-covid hiatus and subsequent move to Copenhagen, Denmark. This is Strangerfamiliar’s debut full length album.