Montañera announces new record, A Flor de Piel, out on November 17th via Western Vinyl

Singer-songwriter and composer María Mónica Gutiérrez (aka Montañera) has joined Western Vinyl and to celebrate the special occasion, her new record as also been unveiled. Entitled A Flor de Piel, this new offering is a meditative journey of self-discovery across oceans, time, and the traditional confines of genre. Originally from Bogotá, Colombia, Gutiérrez began the record as a way to explore her identity after a difficult move to London for school left her feeling untethered and alone in a strange new place. The daunting 5,000 mile journey over a seemingly endless ocean, sparked the beginning of a metamorphosis, imparting her with a new understanding of herself as an artist, and as a human being. Throughout this new record, Gutiérrez examines the immigrant’s experience through a rich sonic lens inspired by sources as disparate as traditional Colombian and Senegalese music, contemporary ambient and experimental production, and whalesong from the depths of the Atlantic.

Alongside the announcement, she shares “Un Día Voy A Ser Mariposa” (One Day I’ll Be A Butterfly), and its accompanying video, which you can watch below this article, explaining: “It’s a song that talks about the changes within me after a separation. How painful, but also how transformative – becoming a butterfly-, how new branches grew in me and sprouted flowers that I give to you. How painful it can be to be born, nonetheless, there is a light that guides me, that awaits me, that burns me, and blinds me. It’s a song about being reborn”. The accompanying video was recorded very close to Bogotá, in the magical mountains of Suesca, a sacred territory for the indigenous people of the region. Considered an energetic portal, these landscapes visually represent the vastness and the profound process of change that “Un Día Voy A Ser Mariposa” entails. “It is a video where the landscape itself tells stories” Montañera explains. “The sounds of the frailejones (a millenary hairy-leafed native plant), the storms in the distance, the lagoons and the caves, guiding her quest of questions and answers. ‘there is a light that fills me’ marks the beginning of the rite of passage where she becomes a butterfly, delving in the depths of the darkness and preparing to come to the surface, as if being reborn. Again in the mountain; in the cleanliness, the nightfall, and the storm, she sits down to contemplate, in deep calm, all the memories that already rest as in a dream.”

A Flor de Piel will be released on November 17th via Western Vinyl. Pre-orders are now available here.