Polica And Stargaze – Music For The Long Emergency (LP)

Album Info Hide Show Artist: Polia And Stargaze Album: Music For The Long Emergency Released: Europe, 2018 Tracklist: A1 Fake Like A2 Marrow A3 Speaking Of Ghost A4 Agree A5 Cursed B6 How Is This Happening B7 Music For The Long Emergency Info About Buying Vinyl From Our Record Store We are a small independent record store located at 211 High St, Preston in Melbourne, Australia (North of Northcote, between Thornbury & Reservoir) We buy and sell new and used vinyl records – if you have a collection you’d like to sell please click here . We ship Australia wide for a flat rate of $10 for standard shipping or $15 for express post. Free Shipping for orders $150 and over. You can also pick up your order in store, just select Local Pickup at the checkout. We also ship internationally – prices vary depending on weight and location. We ship vinyls in thick, rigid carboard mailers with a crushable zone on either side, and for extra safety we bubble wrap the records. 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You can contact our Melbourne record shop at (03) 9939 3807 or at [email protected] Happy Listening! Description Hide Show Some collaborations feel like a clever idea on paper. This one lands in the chest. Released in February 2018 on Totally Gross National Product in the US and Transgressive in the UK and Europe, Music For The Long Emergency pairs Minneapolis synth-pop shapeshifters Polia with Berlins orchestral collective s t a r g a z e, led by conductor Andr de Ridder. The project began under the wing of the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestras Liquid Music series and you can hear that curatorial care all over it. It is a record built for big rooms and bigger feelings, the sort that sit somewhere between protest and prayer. Polias calling cards are here, that pliable low end and Channy Leaneaghs layered, treated voice that flickers between glassy and raw. The twin-drum engine of Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu still drives like a pulse you feel in your sternum, while Chris Bierdens bass stays supple and melodic. s t a r g a z e bring a living, breathing counterpoint, strings and winds that dont just decorate the songs but push against them, redirect them, sometimes gorgeously, sometimes with a knot in the stomach. Ryan Olsons production keeps the electronics warm and thick, then leaves air for the ensemble to bloom. Nothing is ornamental. Everything feels argued for. The centrepiece, How Is This Happening, stretches past the ten-minute mark and earns every second. Leaneagh has said she wrote it in the shock of the 2016 US election night, and you can hear the disorientation in the melody, a kind of stunned keening that never tips into melodrama. s t a r g a z e answer with rising strings that wont settle, then the drums return like a heartbeat youre trying to steady. It is one of those rare long-form tracks that grows without grandstanding; if youve seen Polia live, youll know how they can hold a room in a slow burn, and this captures that. Ive put it on late at night and forgotten to do anything else. Elsewhere the record tightens into sharper shapes. Agree rides a clipped rhythm and one of Leaneaghs cleanest hooks, a gently barbed melody you end up humming while you make coffee. Fake Like is leaner again, the strings darting in and out of the mix, almost like a second vocalist side-eyeing the lyric. When the group goes widescreen again on the closing title track, Music For The Long Emergency, they commit. It is a long, evolving suite, moving from tense drones to a sweeping release, the kind of finale that makes sense of the albums title. The phrase itself nods to a world that doesnt feel like it will snap back to normal any time soon, and the music sits with that reality rather than papering over it. What makes the album satisfying is how it avoids the clichs of classical crossover. There are no syrupy swells pasted onto pop structures. s t a r g a z e have a history of adventurous pairings, and de Ridders arrangements are alive to space and grit. Polia, for their part, already flirted with process music on 2017s Bruise Blood EP, a collaboration with s t a r g a z e that reimagined Steve Reichs Music for Pieces of Wood. You can hear that experience paying off here in the way patterns lock, shift and unlock. The record was made between Minnesota and Berlin, and it carries that push-pull of place too, ice and iron, club and concert hall. If youre the sort of listener who still buys with your ears and your hands, Music For The Long Emergency vinyl is the way to go. The low frequencies feel more grounded and the string overtones sit in a proper halo. It is also a nice gateway if youre hunting for Polia vinyl generally; their catalogue rewards a proper front-to-back spin. For those digging through crates in a Melbourne record store or looking to buy Polia records online, this collaboration sits neatly alongside the bands studio albums and plays well with other Polia albums on vinyl. It also tends to be the one you pull out to convince a friend who thinks electronics and orchestras dont mix. They do, if you let them argue like this. Six years on, the record hasnt dulled. It sounds like a city late at night, streetlights on wet bitumen, and a head full of news you cant shake. Not escapism, not quite comfort either, but a humane steadiness. For those of us who live with stacks of vinyl records Australia wide, always on the lookout for something that shifts the air in the room, this is a keeper. Put it on, let the opening minutes take hold, and see if you dont stay until the last swell fades. Product Reviews Hide Show Write a Review