After releasing their new LP ‘When We Stay Alive‘ last week via Memphis Industries, Poliça are sharing a new video for album standout track “Steady“. The band will be touring across the UK this month with shows in Kingston, Bristol, Manchester, Glasgow, London & Brighton.
“I write many a Poliça song walking through Minneapolis, bundled up while testing out melodies and words under muffling layers of wool,” explains singer Channy Leaneagh of the wintry visual that offers a candid look at her life at home. “This is called northern fashion, winter life, and the image I am selling is one that likes to be warm and doesn’t pollute the earth with toxic acrylic nails and trends that end up in the garbage.”
Directors Lauren Josephine & Zoe Prinds-Flash said in a joint statement: “It was a joyful and very intimate collaboration for us, and the choice to work with all women was purposeful. We created an intentional environment of levity, play, and spontaneity, both for Channy in her movements and interactions between her children in their home, and for our shooting style. These chance moments of improvisation became some of our favorites.”
When Poliça’s Channy Leaneagh fell off her roof while clearing ice in early 2018, she smashed her L1 vertebrae and battered her spine, leaving her in a brace with limited mobility for months. Yet ‘When We Stay Alive’, is not about one debilitating accident. It’s about the redemptive power of rewriting your story in order to heal, and reclaiming your identity as a result. In the still silence of healing, she found that a multitude of feelings were becoming very loud. Leaneagh realized her self-identity had become attached to her experiences of physical and mental trauma, and she began to consider what it would be like to live without the past as a burden. “I felt there were many things I could look at and say, ‘This happened to me but I’m okay now. It’s not happening anymore and I got the care I needed for it. Now it’s time to rewrite the story I tell about myself and to myself'”, she explains.
‘When We Stay Alive’ possesses a new confidence in its sound, reflected in its fierce, determined songs and anchored by the heavy synths and punctuating beats of Olson. Over the last several years Olson and Leaneagh have widely collaborated with musicians from all over the world: both with Bon Iver, and Leaneagh individually with Boys Noize, Lane 8, Sasha, Leftfield, and Daniel Wohl; Olson with Swamp Dogg in addition to countless musicians from the 37d03d collective. As a result, ‘When We Stay Alive’ features one of the largest musical casts of any Poliça record to date.
On Poliça‘s first three albums, Leaneagh focused on restructuring the world and her relationships within it. On ‘When We Stay Alive’, she realizes the power in restructuring her inner self. The album’s title references the idea of moving forward through life—our experiences, both good and bad—and what happens next with the strength we find.
See Poliça live:
6th Feb – London, UK – Banquet Records outstore, St John’s Church, Kingston (Tickets)
7th Feb – Bristol, UK – Thekla (SOLD OUT)
8th Feb – Manchester, UK – Gorilla
10th Feb – Glasgow, UK – St. Lukes
11th Feb – London, UK – Village Underground (SOLD OUT)
12th Feb – Brighton, UK – Concorde 2
14th Feb – Paris, France – La Maroquinerie
15th Feb – Brussels, Belgium – Botanique/Orangerie
16th Feb – Frankfurt, Germany – Zoom
18th Feb – Cologne, Germany – Artheatre
19th Feb – Hamburg, Germany – Gruenspan
21st Feb – Oslo, Norway – John Dee
22nd Feb – Stockholm, Sweden – Slaktkyrkan
24th Feb – Copenhagen, Denmark – Little Vega
25th Feb – Berlin, Germany – Columbia Theatre
27th Feb – Warsaw, Poland – Hydrozagadka
28th Feb – Vienna, Austria – WUK
29th Feb – Munich, Germany – Hansa 39
1st Mar – Milan, Italy – Santeria
3rd Mar – Barcelona, Spain – La Nau
4th Mar – Madrid, Spain – Caracol
5th Mar – Porto, Portugal, Casa Da Musica
19th Mar – Madison, WI – High Noon Saloon
20th Mar – Chicago, IL – Thalia Hall
21st Mar – Detroit, MI – Deluxx Fluxx
23rd Mar – Toronto, OH – Horseshoe Tavern
24th Mar – Montreal, QB – Bar Le Ritz
25th Mar – Boston, MA – Brighton Music Hall
27th Mar – New York City, NY – Webster Hall
28th Mar – Philadelphia, PA – Union Transfer
29th Mar – Washington, D.C. – 9:30 Club
31st Mar – Columbus, OH – The Basement
1st Apr – St. Louis, MO – Off Broadway
2nd Apr – Maquoketa, IA – Codfish Hollow Barn
10th Apr – Minneapolis, MN – First Avenue
16th Apr – Seattle, WA – Neptune Theatre
17th Apr – Vancouver, BC – Venue
18th Apr – Portland, OR – Wonder Ballroom
20th Apr – Sacramento, CA – Harlow’s
21st Apr – San Francisco, CA – The Fillmore
22nd Apr – Los Angeles, CA – Teragram Ballroom
24th Apr – Phoenix, AZ – Crescent Ballroom
25th Apr – Albuquerque, NM – Sister
27th Apr – Austin, TX – Scoot Inn
28th Apr – Dallas, TX – Deep Ellum Art Co
29th Apr – Oklahoma City, OK – 89th St
30th Apr – Lawrence, KS – The Bottleneck
1st May – Omaha, NE – Waiting Room
2nd May – Des Moines, IA – Vaudeville Mews