Shiver Sister

Polica’s Channy Leaneagh has a faraway glaze in her eyes. We’re discussing her band’s remarkable debut album, 40 minutes of processed ennui over which she ululates like someone whose heart is being broken in real time. The melancholy isn’t a put on. Last year her marriage fell apart, and with it Roma Di Luna, the folk outfit she fronted alongside her husband Alexei Casselle. Polica is her chance to grieve.

“There is always a personal thing inside any song,“ she says, a lump in her throat. “On this record it wasn’t self-conscious. I was singing the first thing that came to mind. A lot of the lyrics and vocal melodies were things I came up with on the spot. We pressed ‘record’ and laid it down.”
From the relative musical backwater of Minneapolis, Minnesota, Polica, founded last summer by Channy and multi-instrumentalist Ryan Olson, are getting to be a big deal. Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon is a cheerleader, along with Jay-Z who posted the video to single ‘Lay Your Cards Out’ to his blog. Though success is welcome, for Channy there’s a bitter undertow as it means spending more time away from her daughter.
“It’s very difficult, it makes me sad,” she rues. “I try not to drink too much on the road because being away from my kid gets me down. At the same time, this is a job. Since she was born I’ve set her up with a community of people who fill her with life. She’s certainly well taken care of when I’m gone.”
On Give You The Ghost, Channy’s vocal are heavily Auto-Tuned so that they sound not quite human. Such otherworldliness is part of Polica’s raison d’etre. Channy wanted her voice to sound as much an instrument as anything else on the record.
“It adds the ability to bend notes, so that what you end you with is more an instrument than a voice. When we’re playing shows, it gives me the option of doing different things. It makes everything more fun. It’s a quality that fits the electronic aesthetic of the band and, so, is appealing to me.”
How far we’ve come from the days when Auto-Tune was regarded as a crutch for pop stars who couldn’t hold a note.
“You get that with a lot of things in popular music. Stuff is introduced into pop. Then people in indie and hip hop take it and manipulate it in their own way. For instance, the violin was introduced from classical and folk and you had people like the Dave Matthews Band using it. And now you see people with distortion pedals, looping the violin. All these different genres using it in different ways.”
Coming out of Olson’s Gayngs project – of which Channy was occasional backing singer – Polica had been quietly gaining momentum late last year. However, things really blew up for them in January after Justin Vernon declared himself a fan.
“It was hugely generous of him to say that,” says Leaneagh. “My last band actually opened for him when he was touring For Emma. I just saw him play in Las Vegas. So I’m a friend. Polica performed in Eau Claire, his hometown. He came to see us. Ryan Olson is from Eau Claire too, so there’s a connection.”
For all her gratitude she’d be bummed, she says, if they felt they owed all their success to Bon Iver’s imprimatur.
“We were already doing okay as far as ticket and record sales went. We had a couple of things going for us. This was the first project to come out of Gayngs. I’d just finished my last band. You had all these little pieces coming together by luck. I mean, that plays a big part in it. So much of the music business is about luck. There are all these bands that deserve to do well and don’t.”
The Jay-Z connection is less brag-worthy, she admits. “We heard he was a fan through a friend of a friend. He okays everything that goes on his blog. But I don’t know how our video showed up there. He’s like the King of America.”
Being based in Minnesota can be a handicap for artists with aspirations beyond regional stardom, she says. Roma Di Luna were a huge draw locally but couldn’t get arrested in the next state. She figured things would be the same with Polica.
“It’s funny – before Polica, I used to fear going to New York to perform. I thought I just wasn’t cool enough – that they see so much music there. The odd thing is Polica ended up playing in New York more than in Minneapolis. And I found that people there were just great. It’s the same with LA. They’ve some of the best audiences we’ve had.”
Visitors to Polica’s website will eventually stumble upon the haunting, occasionally yucky, video for ‘Amongster’, which features a menagerie of multi-legged animals engaged in sticky bug coition. In an accompanying essay Channy explains the promo – submitted by a fan – represents a re-contextualisation of the pop video, ergo its relationship with sex. That’s quite a claim for a short film in which cockroaches are shown making sweet insect love.
“You need to think about it [sex] if you’re a women in this industry,” she elaborates. “People will take your picture, send you clothes, put you in music videos. If you’re a man you can just say, ‘Hey, this is who I am’. For women it’s more complicated. People will want to take your picture in certain ways. You might be uncomfortable with that. You have to know who you are. That’s why I admired the video and was happy to have it associated with the song.”
After a near-decade of thankless striving in music, there’s a sense that she’s still coming to terms with Polica’s overnight rise.
“I’m shocked things are going as well as they are,” Leaneagh admits. “We recorded the album really quickly because we were having a lot of fun. Then we put it out, without any expectations. That so many people are interested in listening and seeing us perform – it’s been quite a whirlwind.”

Give You The Ghost is out now.