POLICA – WHEN WE STAY ALIVE //Memphis Industries// (Released 31st January)

Description

£19.99 – 1xLP Crystal Clear Vinyl, Gatefold Sleeve (Plus Download Code)

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 Poliça’s
fourth album, 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.

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 Poliça co-founder and producer Ryan
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 Aaron Dessner and Justin Vernon’s 37d03d
collective. As a result, When We Stay Alive features one of the largest
musical casts of any Poliça record to date. To create the album, Olson
brought his favorite collaborators into his studio for all-night sessions.

He’d then send Leaneagh the files to write lyrics to while recovering at
home, which she’d record alone or with engineer Alex Proctor.
Drummers Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu colored the songs
with a new approach – drastically changing the rhythmic dynamic from
previous efforts by creating an indistinguishable hybrid of live and
electronic instrumentation–and bassist Chris Bierden provided a
melody-laden low-end as well as more layered backing vocals than
ever before.

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.
“I had been living unconsciously in past trauma,” Leaneagh says. “I
don’t want to deny something happened – this is not about repression
– it’s about taking the power back from the past, holding the power in
the present, and creating a new story for myself.”

Track Listing:

1. Driving
2. TATA
3. Fold Up
4. Feel Life
5. Little Threads
6. Be Again
7. Steady
8. Forget Me Now
9. Blood Moon
10. Sea Without Blue