Artist Profile: h.pruz
Hannah Pruzinsky, a founding member and vocalist of the indie-folk band Sister., has been pursuing their own solo project, entitled h.pruz, since the pandemic, utilizing it as an outlet for an additional layer of their voice and creative energy, and, with the release of their second solo album Red sky at morning, they have found yet another evolution in their ever-expanding artistic intention.
As a child, Pruzinsky grew up in an exceedingly conservative, Catholic family, and, for the most part, the music they heard was limited to the country music on the radio and the hymns sung at mass. While they participated in a variety of musical activities, including being classically trained for multiple years in piano and taking on a leading role in the choir at their church from a young age, they never truly considered themselves a “creative” in the traditional sense.
Yet, in their later high school years, music began to become a crucial part of the formation of their identity, and their growing love for artists such as Alex G, Adrianne Lenker, and Arcade Fire represented the slow burning of an ember that, when they left for college, would gradually erupt into a tender flame.
“They’re cancelled now, but I found The Suburbs album by Arcade Fire, and that was a really huge first awakening I think into just how grand music can be and how there can just be such a crazy statement to an album. I really loved that about Arcade Fire at that time.”
Yet, their true awakening to her own creative power came when they met their first college roommate, Ceci Sturman (the other founding member of Sister.). Sturman brought a guitar with her to the dorm, and, over time, convinced Pruzinsky to sing some of the songs they had written. The two found an immediate creative spark and continue to work together to this day, having released their sophomore album, Two Birds, in July 2025.
As they performed around New York City, Pruzinsky began to gain more and more of an understanding of their voice and its capabilities, and, although they loved the music they were making in Sister. wholeheartedly, they felt as though there was another layer of to be uncovered. They returned to the simple audio interface and microphone on which they had demoed their first ever songs, and they quickly were reminded of the inescapably unique quality that that formulation of her creative process possessed:
“I felt like I was usually taking on more of this soprano, angelic sort of tone [in Sister.], and I felt really personally disconnected from other parts of my voice at the time… I started to try recording songs again on my own; just like the times when I would do it and upload it to SoundCloud, but I started using Logic. It felt like moments of magic late at night in my room, adding layers of a song onto each other, and it was something different from the similar magic of making music with someone else. But, when it's just you and you have this moment of creative revelation, it's so special.”
After Pruzinsky laid out a series of demos in solitude, etching out their expansive vocal movements on the canvas of her home recordings, they and their partner, Felix, joined forces to work on the production of her first solo album, No Glory.
Although each track on the project possesses its own deep unity and idiosyncrasy, perhaps no song represents their creative mindset more than “I Keep Changing”. Recorded over two weeks in an attic in upstate New York, Pruzinsky insisted upon operating from the original demo version rather than re-recording it in the production process, allowing the track to maintain the charm it took on in the process of its creation. The result is the most dynamic and nuanced song on the album: a splendorous array of thrumming acoustic guitar and gently transformative melodies.
For the creation of their recent album, Red sky at morning, the duo spent almost an entire winter at Felix’s grandmother’s house, working day in and day out to polish and perfect the songs in a remarkably comforting home studio setting. Having already completed a full project together, the pair became more comfortable negotiating the balance between their approaches to creation and production, and the result is a project that, in many ways, rivals or even surpasses the latent beauty in No Glory.
Now, as Pruzinsky continues work on both Sister. and h.pruz, they feel as though the next step in their creative evolution is to become more comfortable with “letting go” of the art they have created: a process that will allow them to take the first tentative steps into drawing new, ethereal subject matter out of the fabric of their life.
“It always feels so strange to release something… I really want to let life be lived around me right now; I have some ideas of things I want to explore, but I don't want to write a song about something that I'm just pulling to get content. I don't really know right now, but I'm trying to just take my time and be more present with myself, and I’m trying to be more kind [to myself] about the things that I do make.”
