Strangerfamiliar – “Insecure” (video) (premiere)

Based in Montreal, Strangerfamiliar, the name under which the enigmatic, esoteric and endlessly intriguing Ilichna Morasky performs, has delivered a new video, “Insecure”. Morasky’s predilection for the abstract and her ability to provide an understated musical counterpoint to the gut-wrenching emotions behind the track’s lyrics are but two of these piece’s charms. Her movements in the video are equally integral to our appreciation of the tune’s weight.

Morasky says that the song may have been only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. “I wrote it at a very difficult time in my life,” she recalls. “I was in an intense state of constant confusion, anger, and broken-heartedness. I didn’t even know where the hurt was necessarily stemming from. I created a sort of mantra to exorcise this deep rage I felt. It was aimed at a particular external source but, also, ultimately at myself. It went: ‘Liar, coward, insecure, motherfucker.’ Over and over again I would calm myself with these pointed words.”

A year later, she attended an event celebrating diversity in performing arts and music. Witnessing two contemporary dancers, Amber Downie-Back and Tamar Tabori, improvising movement to a drone set, Morasky found further inspiration. “They moved like alien creatures in ways I’d never seen before”, she remembers. “Each motion was perfectly calculated and utterly mesmerizing.” She’d already been contemplating the poles of anger and sorrow for “Insecure” but witnessing these dancers, she adds, cinched the idea and convinced her Downie-Back and Tabori would have to appear in the video.

“I’m interested in the symbolism found in the duality of nature,” Morasky says. “So, for the video, I envisioned the two emotions I was feeling the most, anger and sorrow, as colorful forms representing fire and water. In the video, there’s a pink mask, given to Amber. It covers her eyes, leaving only her mouth exposed as a sensual yet dangerous tool for expression. She represents anger, fire and the stranger (the ego). Tamar’s mask, which is blue, has only her eyes exposed, the center where we best communicate sorrow, representing the ‘familiar’ and water (the subconscious).”

“Insecure” will appear on a new Strangerfamiliar full-length due in 2018. La Secuencia due out 15 November.