The Minneapolis electronic-pop outfit Poliça have released their first single from their forthcoming album,, out in January of next year. The song digs deeply into a past traumatic experience of lead singer Channy Leaneagh, with its accompanying video shows just how destructive of a force this trauma can become.
“Driving” pushes along with an ominous feeling as the subdued instrumentation gives way to Leaneagh’s vocals. As she sings, her lines evoke disturbing images like a “crow begging a hawk for its meat” and “bones bend to eat the shit from the flies.” Soon a pulsing bass line takes over, giving the track a looming intensity. The darkness fueling “Driving” stems from a debilitating accident Leaneagh had last year when she fell off her roof and damaged her spine.
The Isaac Gale-directed video for “Driving” continues to drive home this sense of foreboding, opening with a hypnotic view of a record on a turntable, which later spontaneously combusts. Eventually, the surrounding objects in the room around the turntable—lamps, speakers, tables—become engulfed in flames as well. There’s very little humanity shown in the video, yet when a hand holding a cigarette appears in frame, it becomes clear that someone has been watching the chaos unfold.
Leaneagh also explains how her fall challenged her personal approach to the album and caused her to reevaluate the story she wanted told: 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.”
thisispolica Picture is unnerving me in mostly good way I think