STEFA* Taps Members of Combo Chimbita for New Single 'Sonambula'

STEFA*—the project of Queens-raised Colombian-American artist stefa marin alarcón (they/them)—is sharing "Sonambula," the lead track off their debut album Born With An Extra Rib, arriving June 28 via Figure & Ground.

Produced by STEFA* and Figure & Ground label owner Lily Wen (Combo Chimbita, Bulla en el Barrio), “Sonambula” features Combo Chimbita-members Prince of Queens and Dilemastronauta, alongside Nick Jozwiak (Peter Evans’ Being & Becoming) on bass, and Miles Francis (EMEFE, Will Butler, Antibalas) on drums.

"Sonambula" is about the “feeling of being on autopilot and wanting something else,” stefa describes. "The word itself means 'sleepwalking' and it repeats throughout, leading us like a flashlight in the void space where you don’t know what the edges are or where it ends, and that being the song and the world we live in."

“I hadn’t heard the word ‘sonambula’ before, but when I spoke it, it felt so good in my mouth and it was really fun to loop it," they add. “And we decided to keep all of it in because we wanted it to feel like this constant drone or this loop, this repetition that is conjuring a spell, and it puts you in a bit of a daze or this in between place. I wrote it thinking about apathy and our role in the world and our role in our relationships.”

Following their debut EP Sepalina, which NPR called “gorgeous and hypnotic,” stefa’s forthcoming multi-media debut album Born With An Extra Rib expands in scale and scope, being released alongside a ritual performance film that they created as Artist-In-Residence at New York City's The Kitchen. Born With An Extra Rib: The Film won the Queer|Art|Prize for Recent Work, a Jury Award at TRANSlations Seattle Film Festival, and premiered at The Kitchen as a one-night sold-out engagement.

At the heart of their debut album is a central question posed by STEFA*: "What myths do we inherit that keep us away from ourselves?” Born and raised in Queens to Colombian immigrants, STEFA* takes on this question through their unique amalgamation of experimental pop, electronica, Latin music, punk, classical minimalism, and queer maximalist aesthetics to reconsider their own origin stories “because so many of those were lost along the way of colonization, Born With An Extra Rib was me creating a story of myself and of my own becoming.”  Through this work, STEFA* takes the audience on an intimate spiral where their body, their voice, their conjurings, and their musings become a site for collective liberation.

STEFA* will next perform at "The Tuck",  a nonstop weekend-long Pride festival taking place at Nowadays on Saturday, June 29th and Sunday, June 30th. Presented by Body Hack in collaboration with Queer|Art and Mister Sunday, the event will raise funds for G.L.I.T.S., a grassroots organization dedicated to supporting the LGBTQIA+ community on a global scale.

STEFA*- Born With An Extra Rib

June 28 (Figure & Ground)

01 Sonambula

02 Fascist Love

03 Costillas

04 Same Body

05 differ3nt today

06 negra, revisited

07 3COSAS! 

08 How Do I Cope?

09 U HAVE TO ACT

Photo credit: Carson Stachura

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