POLIÇA

Channy Leaneagh serves as Poliça’s singer and songwriter while Ryan Olson handles production, allowing the group to fuse dream pop, R&B, and electronic music into a voice entirely their own. Their first release, Give You the Ghost, arrived in 2012 and paired Leaneagh’s heavily processed vocals with Olson’s careening textures, yielding emotionally raw yet exploratory reflections on loss. The follow-up records Shulamith and United Crushers, issued in 2012 and 2016 respectively, adopted clearer sonic palettes and sharper lyricism—the latter confronting political themes—yet the band’s gift for atmosphere remained central, shaping the restorative arc documented on When We Stay Alive in 2020 and Madness in 2022.

Before Poliça existed, Leaneagh had already earned recognition throughout Minneapolis, Minnesota, as frontwoman of the folk-rock outfit Roma di Luna. After that ensemble disbanded she contributed backing vocals to Gayngs, Olson’s soft-rock project. In June 2011 the pair began developing material together, placing Leaneagh’s adaptable voice inside Olson’s atmospheric electronic frameworks. Within weeks they possessed enough songs to begin recording, enlisting drummers Ben Ivascu and Drew Christopherson, bassist Chris Bierden, and Bon Iver collaborator Mike Noyce. Spoon’s Jim Eno mixed the resulting tracks, which Totally Gross National Product—Olson and Christopherson’s label—issued on Valentine’s Day 2012 under the title Give You the Ghost. The album received broad critical praise; Mom + Pop later reissued it that August alongside an EP of remixes. Commercially it reached number 15 on Billboard’s Heatseekers chart.

Leaneagh and Olson commenced work on Poliça’s next album early in 2013, tracking it at Bon Iver’s April Base studios. Titled after feminist Shulamith Firestone, the record surfaced in October 2013 with a leaner sound and a guest appearance by Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon. It improved on the previous album’s chart performance, claiming the top spot on the U.S. Heatseekers chart, number 33 on the U.K. Albums Chart, and positions across European and Australian listings. Live opportunities expanded accordingly, encompassing major international festivals and televised performances on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon and Later with Jools Holland. June 2014 brought the Raw Exit EP, containing unreleased material from the sessions plus a cover of “You Don’t Own Me.”

The musicians reconvened in 2015 for their most collaborative writing sessions to date, then traveled to El Paso, Texas, to capture United Crushers—an urgent, live-sounding collection released in March 2016 that reached number five on the Heatseekers chart. While Leaneagh lent vocals to projects by Lane 8, Sasha, and Leftfield, Poliça initiated an extended partnership with Berlin’s experimental orchestral ensemble s t a r g a z e. Introduced through Aaron Dessner and Vernon, the alliance produced 2017’s Bruise Blood, a reinterpretation of Steve Reich’s Music for Pieces of Wood, followed in 2018 by the politically focused Music for the Long Emergency.

In February 2018 Leaneagh fell from her roof while removing ice, fracturing her L1 vertebrae and injuring her spine. The recovery process informed Poliça’s fifth album, When We Stay Alive, issued in January 2020. Reunited with engineer Jim Eno, the band further integrated electronic and rock instrumentation across some of their most affirmative material. When the COVID-19 pandemic halted touring, the group returned to Olson’s studio and employed the anthropomorphic production system “AllOvers(c),” developed with producer and sound artist Seth Rosetter. Additional production came from Dustin Zahn, Alex Ridha, and Alex Nutter. The resulting songs extended both the sonic and thematic concerns of When We Stay Alive. After the February 2022 release of the standalone track “Rotting,” Madness appeared that June.