“Music to listen to while everything is burning down,” is how STEFA* describes their debut EP ​Sepalina. “To create my own sonic landscapes is to build a world I can exist in wholly.” A vocal artist born, raised, and currently living in Queens, ​they constructs gorgeous and densely layered vocal lines with traces of choral music, classical minimalism, and electronic pop.

Inspired by STEFA*’s family and secrets that are still only partially revealed, Sepalina​ tells the tale of a native alien and how they came to inhabit this planet, washed up on shore in the present, stripped of their memories and their language. “My mother recently uncovered things about my grandmother’s life that has shocked the entire family – she’s become this mystery character who can't speak for herself because she’s gone, and so everyone is trying to piece together her story. I was told my indigenous side comes from her, so I started researching the tribe she was from, the Emberá-Chamí.”

They describes: “I felt I had to go back in time in order to begin to understand my present. I started looking up anything I could find online of the Emberá people — chants, songs — I found one and tried transcribing what they were singing, listening and writing down whatever vowel sounds and phrases I could hear forming – and so I transcribed ‘Sepalina’.”

On September 14, 2018, Figure & Ground releases STEFA*’s debut EP Sepalina comprising six original tracks written, performed and produced by STEFA*. A limited edition of the Sepalina handbook, written and designed by STEFA*,  is open for pre-orders and available at fgrecords.com. Accompanying the EP, it includes a risograph print, full color photographs, lyrics and personal notes on the story of their character native alien.

“The title track ‘Sepalina’ is my protest song, my song for the revolution. I was living in Bushwick when I wrote it and so much was happening around me – violent gentrification, police brutality and countless protests against all that. There’s this Pablo Neruda quote that translated into English says: You can cut all the flowers but you can’t keep Spring from coming.’ I thought of all these uprisings around the world and the fact that we are no longer okay with being oppressed or marginalized. We have enough language, knowledge and ways to spread information around that we’re becoming stronger – that’s what they’re so afraid of, the governments and these powers. And so that was the connection that I made between those worlds – and Sepalina – but I don’t know what it means. I haven’t given it a direct narrative.”

As a child, STEFA* sang in choir and had profound experiences blending their voice with groups: ​“I’d sing these very epic pieces as a 15 year old. When I started going into my solo work, I wanted to replicate that feeling I had when I was in a chorus and I was singing one harmony line and there were four other lines around me and 80 other voices and yet, it felt like one voice. So that’s how I got into looping and harmonizing with myself. I thought, how do I just rely on myself and how do I become this chorus and this orchestra of voices?”

A vocal artist and performer focused on the intersection of politics, the self and their cultures, STEFA* builds meditative soundscapes of harmonies and dissonance through sonic layering and vocal improvisations. As part of TrueQue Residencia Artistica (Ayampe, Ecuador 2017), they facilitated their first voice workshop, Primitive Songs//Cantos Primitivos after studying for voice for 20 years. Recently they traveled to Vienna where they performed as part of American Realness at wiener festwochen’s ‘performeum.’ In July, they’ll be performing as part of Brooklyn Museum’s Radical Women: Latin American Art, 1960–1985. Sounds to expect: rumbling jungle rhythm & blues opera of the diaspora.

All tracks composed and performed by STEFA* 

“Sepalina” co-produced by mowri 

"Volver" produced by Abraham Cavin Quezada 

All others produced by STEFA* 

“Una Casita" intro adapted from Gabriella Espinosa's original version 

Recorded in a bedroom in Queens, a cottage in Kingston & a storefront in Brooklyn 

Engineered & mixed by mowri 

“Wake Up" & “Una Casita” (Pt. 1 & 2) recorded by Lily Wen 

Mastered by Jamal Ruhe 

Cover photo by Adriana Monsalve 

Jacket design by Secret Riso Club

Thanks to mi madre, my ancestras & Stephanie Orentas 

© 2018 Figure & Ground

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