a place both wonderful and strange

a place both wonderful and strange is the New York based dark electronic project of Russ Marshalek and Laura Hajek, who have worked together as a creative duo since 2016. Taken from a line in Twin Peaks, a place both wonderful and strange makes deeply human, smeared and smudged darkwave with feet both on the dance floor and in a locked, darkened room.

They have toured both an ever evolving visceral live show and an audio visual soundtracking of Twin Peaks’s Laura Palmer’s tragic and horrifying final moments titled “Keys Open Doors: The Hidden Life of Laura Palmer” for a decade now. The Laura Palmer themed show saw its final performance in April at The Bell House in Brooklyn, following the passing of David Lynch.

Their last releases were a pair of EPs, a covers record titled Coverups and a collection titled The City Smells Like Cat Spit, both released in 2018.

Now the duo begins a new chapter with the label and returns with Matter and Desire, their first full release in years. The album has been with them for eight years. It started, stalled, shifted, and followed them through different points in their lives. Some songs lived onstage long before they ever found their way into a studio. Others existed only as pieces and ideas that refused to disappear. In 2025 they finally brought everything into the studio and finished the record in a burst of clarity, realizing they had needed time and distance to make the album honest and complete.

Both Russ and Laura maintain careers outside of a place both wonderful and strange, in art and otherwise. Russ is a writer, DJ, and one third of the DJ collective ADVENTURE[s], the creators of This Party Is Killing You!, the internationally acclaimed Robyn night. Laura is also a collaborator on This Party Is Killing You! and maintains her own art practice and solo music and performance as Edith Pop and other monikers.

Matter and Desire