Start Listening To: koleżanka

We caught koleżanka right after releasing a new album, ‘Place Is’, to give us tips on polish language, navigating toxic the NYC music industry and getting personal in a psych art-pop manner.

For those unfamiliar, can you tell us a little bit about who you are, where you’re from, and what kind of music you make?

I am a songwriter, vocalist, and multi-intsrumentalist from Phoenix, AZ but have been living in NYC for a few years now. I always feel intimidated by this question of genre… but I suppose I make psych art pop?  

How has it been working with Bar/None Records?

Truly very good! I have friends who have signed to some labels and feel like they just become another notch on the roster, just another artist to have in hopes that something they do will generate income for the label. Bar/None has been very supportive and very engaged. I think they’re a label that really cares about what they’re putting out, and whats at the heart of this business, which is music of course.

Care to give us a rough translation of your name as an artist for our anglophone readers? 

Yes, “koleżanka” is the feminine of the word “kolega”, which means “colleague”, but I have understood it more deeply as a person you might work with but also know privately in some way.  

Tell us a little about your brief stint with New York-based band Triathalon.

I met Triathalon back around 2015 when they were on tour in Phoenix. We became friends and kept in touch, and after playing some shows in New York and seeing them again, I was asked to play keys on an upcoming tour they had in spring of 2018. I accepted and ultimately became the keys player for the next tours and shows until December of 2019. It was very transformative for me, and also very fun!

What can you tell us about your new album, Place Is?

I made this record with my close friend and collaborator, Ark Calkins. We actually completed the majority of it back in winter of 2019 and planned to record it that following spring, but the pandemic halted our plans and we formally recorded it separately in the fall of 2020 (Ark tracked drums and bass in Phoenix and I tracked everything else in New York).  It was an important record for me in that it was the first time I felt like I wasn’t writing to emotionally unpack as I had previously done. I was certainly writing from personal places, but I also felt I was more freely experimenting instrumentally and allowing myself to be more bold with compositional choices.

How did the songwriting process go for the tracks on Place Is?

The songwriting process is quite representative of the album themes. We wrote everything between two places, passing songs back and forth and discussing our ideas from afar. I have a show coming up on 8/19, Ark will be flying to new york to play and it will be the first time the record has ever been performed live.  

Would you say you have one typical creative process or does it vary from project to project or track to track?

For this record, I was sketching a lot of ideas, some more fully formed than others, and sending demos to Ark so they could add bass and/or drums to further complete an idea or give me more to draw inspiration from. Some songs, like “The Offensive” or “In a Meeting”, were songs I had more fully developed and Ark created dynamics to finish them and make them whole. Other songs, like “Vegan Sushi”, began as fragments of vocals and synth lines, and Ark wrote drums and bass to them that brought a fresh outlook I could sit with again to write lyrics round out the edges.

I usually prefer to write alone, I am not much of a “jam guy” and don’t even really like to flesh out ideas with others in real time. So I think for some, our process would be a hinderance. But for me it feels more natural.

Who are your biggest musical influences?

I suppose there’s definite evidence of artists I listen to that is present in my music, but I don’t think I’ve ever been someone who derives too much from others, or at least I try not to. To be honest, my impulses to write something are usually influenced by abstract sounds. Like I feel a lot about the sound of water, and when it rains I always hope I have the opportunity to be home alone in the studio writing. I like when random sounds collide, like a person's laugh with  the sound of a car horn, and it creates something harmonic and pleasing, or even when it creates interesting dissonance.

If you got the chance to perform alongside anyone else, who would you pick and why?

Cate Le Bon, because she is Cate Le Bon.

What do you love right now?

Wine. Making myself food as often as I can. And days where I never leave my apartment. I was in bed last night at 9pm with a carbonic macerated Pinot Gris and a roasted caprese with sourdough crisps and thought “why do I ever go anywhere else but here?”. I believe this is qualifiedly some “big Taurus Sun energy”

What do you hate right now?

Summer. It’s fine for the first two or three weeks. But otherwise I really don’t care for it and would just like it to end already.

If you had to pick a favourite track from this new album, could you? If so — which of the tracks on the album is your favourite child?

“Words For No One” is my favorite track, hands down. I don’t know if it is because it was the most recently written, or if its just that I am most satisfied with its composition. I also think “7th st/ 7th Ave” is a favorite to play, and a favorite track. I hold both the track and the very sappy nostalgic music video I made for it very close to me.  

We really enjoyed ‘A Mouthful’! What are the themes you’re trying to convey with this track?

I wanted to capture a lot of the apathy I was feeling at the time, both lyrically and in the sort of meandering quality of the song itself. The song is about my experiences coming off of a tour and having to settle into having to work in the New York service industry to pay my bills, and the often reputably toxic environment the industry can be here and the toxic habits of drinking all the time and hanging out in bars every night as a coping mechanism.

Was this an album you created with a lot of help or was it a relatively personal project?

I think my work is always a personal project, and is often times something I pursue completely alone. This record was the first I made where I invited someone else in to more intimately participate in the writing process. Ark gave me way to steer the ship as I have always done, but they lended so much in drums and bass and in production and simply being an ear for ideas I had. So I would say it is something personal, but we shared the process together.